1415: Henry V's Year of Glory

by Mortimer, Ian

  At Westminster the Teutonic envoys finally managed to see the clerk to the council. Did he provide them with the promissory letter they required? Not at all. He said he could find no record of any decision in this matter and they would have to return the following day to see the council.83

  Wednesday 19th

  Predictably enough, Benefeld and Covolt returned to see the privy council as directed. There were only four councillors present: the archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop Langley of Durham, the earl of Arundel (treasurer of England), and John Wakeryng (keeper of the privy seal). And they met purely to record their decision that they agreed that the treasurer should have power to make assignments of the royal customs and subsidies on wool, leather and hides.84 They did not grant a hearing to the Teutonic envoys. As soon as their morning’s business was dealt with, the archbishop of Canterbury departed for Maidstone, to join Bishop Courtenay of Norwich and the bishop of London in consecrating Stephen Patrington as the new bishop of St David’s.85

  Benefeld and Covolt accosted Bishop Langley. Langley told them he could do nothing in this matter without the approval of Henry Beaufort, the chancellor. He advised them to go to Winchester and take the matter up with him again. Benefeld prepared to ride to Winchester in person. What else could he do?

  Thursday 20th

  Men up and down the country were busy enlisting archers. This was especially the case in the north of England and in Wales, where the archery tradition was strongest. In Cheshire, 247 archers were recruited for the campaign. In Lancashire, five hundred archers had been assembled by the local gentry. North Wales was still a sensitive area, but recruitment in the south, in the lordship of Brecon and the counties of Carmarthen and Cardigan, had yielded five hundred archers, including twenty-six mounted men. All of them were packed off to Southampton to join the general muster there.86

  *

  Probably in London, and probably about this time, Lord Scrope had a conversation with Sir Walter Lucy, lord of Richard’s Castle and a close friend and retainer of the earl of March. Lucy was also a first cousin of Sir Thomas Gray, and although he probably did not know yet of the meeting between Gray and Cambridge on the 17th, he knew the two men very well, and understood their antipathy towards Henry V. His purpose in meeting Lord Scrope was to tell him, in the strictest secrecy, that he was worried lest the earl of Cambridge and Sir Thomas Gray would incite the earl of March to claim the throne.87

  The evidence for this conversation comes from Scrope’s own testimony. The original document is badly damaged but these two men seem to have met and discussed the earl of Cambridge and Sir Thomas Gray between the council’s instructions to release Mordach and hearing the news of his recapture.88 It may be that Lucy already knew that Cambridge was planning to ask Sir Thomas Gray to join him. The key three facts that seem incontrovertible are that (1) Lucy raised the matter with Scrope; (2) that he did so in the wake of another Lollard mass gathering; and (3) that Scrope asked for more information about the plot.89 At this point Lucy, who realised he had already spoken too freely, said nothing more and was ‘hard’ with Scrope.

  Why did Lucy tell a close friend of the king about the plot, endangering himself and the earls of March and Cambridge and Sir Thomas Gray? The explanation lies in the fact that the king had discovered that the earl of March had not only obtained the appropriate papal dispensation to marry Anne Stafford but had already completed the act. Henry was furious when he found out – so much so that he told the earl of March that he was going to fine him 10,000 marks for his effrontery. This is the same sum for which March had bound himself to the king in his indenture, sealed at the beginning of the reign lest he rebel against the king; it was utterly shocking that the full sum should be laid upon him just for marrying without permission, at the age of twenty-four. Normally fines for this were between £100 and £1,000. But Henry was merciless: he insisted that the earl pay the full amount – and if he did not have the money, then he was to borrow it. Walter Lucy himself had lent the earl 500 marks, and the earl of Arundel and Lord Scrope had provided the rest. This is why Lucy and Scrope had fallen into conversation: they were both creditors to a man who was on the verge of rebellion. Lucy warned his fellow creditor that the earl might easily fall prey to the conniving of his rebellious kinsman, the earl of Cambridge and Sir Thomas Gray. Then they would not only lose their money; the kingdom might slip into a civil war.

  Scrope was profoundly shocked. All he knew at this stage – as far as we can tell – was that March was on the edge of rebellion, and that Lucy knew something was afoot between Cambridge, Gray and March. But Lucy would not tell him more.

  Scrope was determined to find out. He was aware of how Edward, duke of York, had foiled the Epiphany Rising in 1400 – by joining the plotters and then revealing all to the king – and had saved the entire royal family.90 Scrope decided to do likewise, to ingratiate himself with the plotters to determine what they were planning.

  Friday 21st

  By today news had reached Winchester that the bishop of Chichester had died. Henry instructed that a letter be sent to the dean and chapter giving them permission to elect another bishop. It seemed as if he was going to allow the canons to elect one of their own number. But Henry nominated his own preferred candidate – his confessor, Stephen Patrington – almost immediately. This was in spite of the fact that Patrington had only recently been consecrated as bishop of St Davids. It seems a little high-handed, and it seems almost certain there was a financial motive. Patrington – an aged Carmelite friar – had little need for a large personal income; he was probably more than satisfied with the temporalities of the bishopric of St David’s, which Henry had granted him in April and delivered just two weeks ago. Henry may have nominated Patrington on the understanding that the new bishop would not demand the Chichester income straightaway. In the end Henry took the temporal income from the bishopric of Chichester for well over a year.91

  Henry’s cash flow was helped today by the largest single loan he received. The treasurer of Calais, Roger Salvayn, deposited £10,936 3s 8d with the treasurer in London.92

  The long-suffering envoy from the Teutonic Knights, Peter Benefeld, arrived in Winchester today. Beaufort greeted him with the words, ‘Aren’t you settled yet? I’m exceedingly sorry but I’ll see about your letter tomorrow’.93 And Benefeld had to make do with that.

  Saturday 22nd

  At Westminster a second recognition of a debt to an Italian merchant was made – this one for a loan of 200 marks and a debt of £478 18s 8d to a merchant of Lucca, Paolo de Melan.94 Clearly the council’s bullying tactics were working, in the short term at least.

  From Westminster more letters went out under the authentication, ‘by the king’. These were addressed to the bishops of Lincoln and Ely, ordering them to muster the clergy of the dioceses to defend the realm and the Catholic Church. The instructions were as those of 1 June but they carried the added proviso that they were not to meddle with the students and clerks of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.95 Students obviously could not be expected to defend the realm.

  Two other royal letters are extant, both dated at Winchester, and so closer to where Henry himself was at this time. One gave orders that a joiner called John Widmore should be paid £25 for delivering a thousand lances to the king.96 The other directed the sheriff of Oxfordshire to send a further two hundred oxen, bullocks and cows to Fareham as speedily as possible, for the troops to eat.97 That was the equivalent of twenty-five plough teams. The folk of Oxfordshire and Berkshire were going to have a harder task ploughing their fields next year.

  *

  Peter Benefeld was still not having any luck with Chancellor Beaufort. He went to see him, as instructed, but was told that Beaufort was busy on account of the impending arrival of the French envoys. He would be unable to see him for at least eight days.

  Sunday 23rd

  It was the eve of the feast of St John the Baptist. People up and down the country lit ceremonial bonfires this evenin
g to mark the night before Midsummer’s Day. In some towns, people rolled burning hoops through the streets. In other places they built wakefires around which they drank and danced, or ‘St John’s fires’, piled with wood and bones. The inclusion of bones in these St John’s fires was to ward off evil spirits – the only problem was having to dance through clouds of smoke that smelled truly revolting.98

  From Winchester Henry sent out another letter concerning the University of Cambridge. This was to the sheriff to keep the peace in the town ‘as the king is informed that certain scholars of the university have made riots and unlawful assemblies there, and are striving day and night to continue to make them, to the disturbance of the people and in breach of the peace’.99 In contrast to his letter of the previous day, ordering the bishop of Lincoln not to force the Cambridge students to array for the defence of the realm, it sounds as though these scholars would have been ideal conscripts.

  *

  Henry, Lord Scrope of Masham, dictated his will to his clerk, John Bliton, and set his seal to it.100 Given his closeness to Henry, and given his political associations, it is not a document that can be passed over lightly.

  The first thing one notices about the document is its size. The printed version extends to 8½ folio pages – more than 5,000 words of Latin. The most important lords mentioned were the king, Henry Beaufort, Thomas Beaufort, Bishop Langley of Durham, and Lord Fitzhugh. Although there are references to Masses to be sung for the souls of Richard II, Henry IV and Thomas, duke of Gloucester (the murdered uncle of Richard II and Henry IV), the rest of the royal family does not appear. In other words, there is no evidence here of strong political connections outside the king’s immediate circle. Scrope made bequests to more than a dozen of his own family members and more than fifty other men of his household – everybody who served him was given a considerable sum, even the boys and the pages who served in his household were to be given a noble (6s 8d) – but the earls of March and Cambridge, Lord Clifford, Sir Thomas Gray and Sir Walter Lucy do not appear at all.

  Normally we would be surprised to find pages and boys given significant bequests in a lordly will. But Lord Scrope was one of the most generous men of his time – loaning money to lords during life as well as giving it away in death. However, money was not half the story, for he was among the most religious men of the age too. We have already come across his ownership of a copy of The Revelations of St Bridget, and his will amplifies this religiosity to a quite remarkable extent. Most of his bequests were of religious things, not money. For example to the king he gave a gold figure of the Virgin Mary garnished with balas rubies and pearls. To Henry Beaufort he gave a small breviary covered in blue velvet. To Thomas Beaufort he gave a book of meditations; to Bishop Langley, an illuminated Apocalypse in Latin and French, a book of Mattins; and to Lord Fitzhugh he gave two books containing the Incendium Amoris and Judice me Deus, both by Richard Rolle, a Yorkshire hermit and mystic. These set the pattern for all his other personal bequests too – almost everyone of high rank received a valuable book of spiritual devotion. He had dozens in his possession.

  Reading Scrope’s will, the overwhelming surprise is the sheer number of religious bequests. He left sums of money, holy books and costly vestments to about forty named churches and monasteries. Some of these were substantial: to the shrine of St John of Bridlington he bequeathed his ‘gold collar with white swans and small flowers’, to the prior of Bridlington he gave a religious book and a gilt-silver crucifix; to the king’s new priory at Sheen he gave £10; and he gave 5 marks to every other Charterhouse in the kingdom. But then one sees that he made a bequest of at least a noble (6s 8d) to every single recluse or anchorite in the whole country. Having given 1 mark, £1, £2, or a book, to specific anchorites and recluses at Westminster, Beverley, Pontefract, Stafford, Newcastle, Peasholme, York, Wigton, Chester, Gainsborough, Leake, Stamford, Dartford, and seven other places, he stipulated that 6s 8d should be given to every anchorite and recluse in London and its suburbs, and in York and its suburbs, and to every other anchorite or recluse who could be found within three months of his death.

  Given all the above, it is no surprise to find that Scrope made extremely detailed arrangements for his burial. He spoke of his lowly state in terms reminiscent of self-abasing Lollard wills. He left his soul ‘to Almighty God, the Virgin Mary, St John the Baptist, St Katherine and all the saints’ and expressed a wish to be buried in the north side of the chancel of York Minster, between two columns. If that was not possible he wanted to lie near his father in the chapel of St Stephen in the same minster. He hoped his wife would choose to be buried beside him, when her time came, and bequeathed her goods to the value of £2,000. He asked to be buried in a table tomb of marble, with an effigy of alabaster representing him in armour, with St John at his head and St Katherine at his foot. He made many gifts of gilt-silver figures to the minster, and gave specific instructions about the size of the candles he wanted to be used at his funeral – two, each of 24lbs – and how many Masses were to be sung for his soul, and for how many years after his death.

  All in all, the impression we have of Lord Scrope is that he was the most deeply religious temporal lord at Henry’s court – with the exceptions of the king himself and possibly Lord Fitzhugh, a cofounder of Syon Abbey. He was in every way an asset to the king: as a diplomat, a religious man, and as a trusted confidant. His recently acquired knowledge of the wavering of the earl of March was worrying not because he was inclined to support him or the earl of Cambridge but rather because of the danger they spelled to the royal family, with whom he was intimately connected. The only thing possibly dividing him from the king was his outlook on war. He had not attended the great council in April and was late turning up to the council meeting at the end of May to discuss Henry’s secret diplomacy with Burgundy. As a deeply religious man, who had visited the shrine of the peace-loving St Bridget in person, it is possible that he did not approve of unnecessary military aggression.101 But even so, his will shows that the king and the king’s most trusted confidants remained the men closest to his heart. The earls of March and Cambridge did not even merit a mention.

  Monday 24th: the Feast of St John the Baptist

  Midsummer’s Day itself saw the Midsummer Eve celebrations continued, with more bonfires, dancing and drinking. In some towns pageants were held. In others Midsummer marches or processions were arranged, with the men of the town parading with weapons, torches and music. Mummers might join in these marches, dressed as giants or dragons. Sometimes naked boys took part, painted black to represent Moors. Houses were decorated with greenery brought in from the country, and shop fronts and streets were festooned with leafy boughs, garlands and birch branches.102

  At Winchester, Henry issued another order for meat for the army, in addition to that of the 22nd. This one went out to the sheriffs of Wiltshire and Hampshire; Henry wanted them each to find a hundred cattle and take them to Lymington, Romsey, Alderford, Fareham and Titchfield, paying whatever price may be agreed.103 Such orders as these allow us to imagine the sheriffs’ officers attending every market in the vicinity, buying cattle, and the roads filled with animals as well as men on the move, the cows being herded together for their march towards the towns around Southampton.

  Tuesday 25th

  Letters were being issued from three places in the king’s name. Yesterday’s two orders had been issued from Winchester and Southampton. Today another patent letter went out as ‘by the king’ from Westminster. This confirmed the settlement of some confiscated alien priories’ property on a royal esquire, John Woodhouse, whom Henry had recently appointed chamberlain of the exchequer. The recipient was to acknowledge his service by ‘rendering to the king a red rose at Midsummer’ every year thereafter.104

  The king was actually based at Wolvesey Castle, the bishop’s palace near Winchester Cathedral. A letter was sent out from there in his name to Richard Courtenay, bishop of Norwich, licensing him to grant a portion of a manor to the collegiate
church of Ottery St Mary, Devon, in aid of the maintenance of the Courtenay family altar, dedicated to St Catherine.105 Another letter was sent out from Winchester awarding an annuity of £20 to Ralph Pudsay esquire, who had recaptured Mordach, earl of Fife.106

  *

  In York, about this time, Gray would also have heard the news about Mordach’s recapture. A man called Skranby brought him a letter at his lodgings, written by the earl of Cambridge in person. It explained that Lord Clifford had not come on the 20th, as he had promised, and so Cambridge had not sent for Gray to join them. Whatever else it said we have no way of knowing, for Gray tore it up and threw it into a cesspit.107

  *

  In his cell in the Franciscan friary in Constance, Jan Hus wrote to his friends.

  Our Saviour restored Lazarus to life four days after his decomposition. He preserved Jonah for three days in the whale and then sent him to preach. He drew up Daniel from the lions’ den to write prophecies … Why could He not now liberate me, a miserable wretch, from prison and death, in the same manner …?

  A certain doctor told me that whatever I did in submitting to the council would be good and lawful for me; and he added that ‘if the council said that you only had one eye, even if you had two, you should confess to the council that it was so’.108