1415: Henry V's Year of Glory

by Mortimer, Ian

  As he was travelling, an esquire rode up alongside him. It was his cousin, Walter Lucy. They greeted each other and before long their conversation turned to Henry Percy and King Richard II. Lucy asked Gray what had happened about Henry Percy. Gray replied that he did not know, although he added that he had seen ‘an indenture which was not likely to be fulfilled’. Then Lucy told him about the heavy debts that the earl of March had undertaken, and how the earl had borrowed heavily from the earl of Arundel and Lord Scrope, as well as himself, in order to pay back the punitive fine that Henry had levied on him for marrying Anne Stafford. Lucy added that Arundel and Scrope had always been good to the earl of March. Gray was sanguine. It meant nothing, he said, for the earl of March ‘was but a hog’.

  At this point the conversation shifted on to more dangerous ground. Lucy said to Gray that the earl of March ‘should be found a man and challenge his right’, meaning that the earl of March should make a claim for the throne. He added that he understood from the earl of March that Lord Scrope had been to see him of his own free will, and ‘the highest and the haughtiest’ had spoken to the earl also, encouraging him to pursue his claim. Scrope had told him that he had the support of the earl of Arundel too, for they had both been intent on helping the earl of March for the last three years. Scrope had finally presented the earl with three alternative strategies. One was to go to France and return at the head of a mercenary army (as the earl’s ancestor, the first earl of March, had done in 1326). Another was to attack the king at sea. The third was to go into Wales and start a rising against the Lancastrians there.

  The testimonies on which the above account relies are suspect, being delivered by Gray at a later date, in prison. But even so one can see that Lucy was not being wholly honest with him. The earl of Arundel was one of the king’s closest friends; he was not a man to favour the earl of March’s claim to the throne. Nor was Scrope. But both men had lent the earl money. When Lucy told Gray that Arundel and Scrope would support the earl of March’s claim to the throne, he was lying. When Scrope and Arundel had resolved in 1412 that they would help the earl of March’s cause, they had only meant as far as marrying Anne Stafford. Neither man wanted the earl to be king. And Scrope’s recent visit to the earl was rather more sensitive than either the earl himself or his steward, Lucy, realised. Scrope wanted to know more about the plot – not in order to join it but to learn what was afoot. His observation that the earl of March had three strategies open to him was not delivered as conspiratorial advice but an observation: a warning. He later repeated these same strategies – to show the flaws in each of them.

  Nonetheless, Lucy convinced Gray that Lord Scrope and the earl of Arundel would support the cause of the earl of March. He had fooled himself into thinking this, and now he fooled Gray into thinking it too. At this point Gray began to think that the earl of Cambridge’s plot might not be so far-fetched after all. If they could bring about a revolution between them, Gray surmised, then he stood to gain mightily. His son would be married to the king’s niece.42

  Saturday 20th

  At Southampton Henry ordered Richard Redeman and John Strange, king’s clerks, to supervise the mustering of the men about to set sail under the command of the duke of Clarence.43 The reason for having royal clerks look over the lordly retinues was in order to count exactly how many had gathered, and to make sure that they were all fit to fight. Henry did not want to pay the wages of useless men, or archers who could not draw a longbow, or men who had simply failed to show up.

  At Westminster the king’s clerks acted on an instruction that Henry must have issued some days before. They searched the patent rolls in accordance with their instructions – presumably conveyed by Chancellor Beaufort on his return to London – and drew up a commission to two clerks to assist the prior provincial of the Dominican Order in England to investigate the nuns of Dartford. The Dominican nuns’ house had been founded by Edward III; being a royal foundation, the prior provincial had to petition the king for permission to intervene.44 The king had granted the petition and given the clerks power ‘to enquire into and punish with the said prior provincial any defects, excesses and trespasses in these things and to reduce all the sisters to obedience according to the form of apostolic bulls and letters patent dated 10 November in the 30th year of the reign of Edward III.’45

  *

  Sir Thomas Gray received a message at Hambledon, in Hampshire.46 If he should hasten on to Southampton he would hear a ‘new thing’ from the earl of Cambridge. So he did.

  When he arrived, Gray told Cambridge about meeting Walter Lucy the previous day, and hearing from him that Lord Scrope and the earl of Arundel had been supporters of the earl of March’s cause for the last three years. That seems to have been the catalyst for Cambridge to discuss his new plans with Gray in detail. Cambridge had decided to shift his attention directly to the earl of March. The idea was to take the earl into Wales, and there proclaim him king of England, declaring that Henry V was a usurper. The earl of Cambridge – whose maternal grandfather had been King Pedro of Castile – had in his custody the Pallet of Spain, a piece of head armour which incorporated a real crown. The earl of March could be crowned with that. He also owned a banner decorated with the arms of England. With a genuinely royal opposition leader to fight for, many of those who did not want to go to France, many Lollards and many Welshmen would be attracted to their cause. Or so he thought.

  *

  William, Lord Botreaux, of Cadbury in Somerset, was preparing to set out with sixty men in his retinue. He was twenty-six years old, and normally would not have considered making his will for another twenty years. But like many young men on the verge of setting out for France, he decided that the time had come to consider his final resting place and the final disposal of his worldly goods.

  First he declared that he wanted to be buried in the parish church at Cadbury. With regard to his possessions, he bequeathed to his wife Elizabeth ‘all the utensils, ornaments and furniture of my hall, chambers, kitchen, pantry and buttery except the drinking cups, basins and ewers and other vessels of gold and silver’. He also left her ‘a basin and ewer of silver, five newly-made goblets, a drinking cup of gold made in the form of a rose, and suit of vestments for her altar, adorned with peacocks’ feathers and velvet’. He left £1,000 to be shared between his two daughters, for their marriage portions, but if they inherited his estate due to the lack of a son then the £1,000 was to be ‘distributed by my executors to the poor and needy, and to buy books and vestments for such parish churches of my patronage as may want them, and to help the poor tenants in my lordships’. He directed that three priests should celebrate divine services at Cadbury for his soul and the souls of his ancestors, until a college could be founded there according to his directions. He left bequests of £2 to each of the four orders of friars at Bristol and to various friaries and monasteries from Bodmin in Cornwall to Salisbury in Wiltshire. And on every Wednesday and Friday for ten years after his death, his executors were to distribute a penny to each of twenty-four paupers.47

  Sunday 21st

  Three envoys arrived from King Ferdinand of Aragon with a present of two fine coursers and a jennet for Henry. Their instructions were to negotiate a new alliance between Aragon and England, and to propose a marriage between Henry and Maria, King Ferdinand’s eldest daughter. They found the king pleasant and open to negotiation on their initial interview but were informed that he was about to cross to France. So they went on a pilgrimage to Canterbury by way of Winchester and London at Henry’s expense. Henry deputed John Waterton and Master John Kempe to meet them on their return to Southampton and to sail to Spain with them to meet Ferdinand.48

  The instructions he gave Waterton and Kempe were guarded. They were to admit that Henry was unmarried but they were to stress that it would be ‘a very difficult matter’ to arrange a marriage, even if Maria was a suitable bride. Rather he instructed them to offer the hand of one of his two unmarried brothers (John and Humphrey), with
a request for a dowry of 200,000 crowns, although the envoys might allow themselves to be beaten down to 160,000. Henry still intended to take a French princess for himself.49

  *

  When Sir Thomas Gray awoke in the guesthouse of the Greyfriars in Southampton, he found Lord Scrope standing at the foot of his bed. Scrope asked how he liked the prospect of the voyage to France. Gray admitted that he was averse to it, and told Scrope about his meeting with Walter Lucy two days earlier. Gray had believed Lucy’s story about Scrope supporting the earl of March’s cause. He further believed that Lord Scrope was prepared to consider rebellion against the Lancastrians on account of the fate of his uncle Archbishop Scrope of York, who had been executed on Henry IV’s personal authority in 1405. So he asked Scrope directly: did he favour the earl of March’s claim to the throne?

  Scrope knew that if he simply denied that the earl of March had a claim, then Gray would realise that he had been misled. Gray would inform Cambridge, and he would be unable to find out anything more about the plot. So he answered evasively. He told Gray that he had visited the earl of March and heard him speak about his claim to the throne, following his outrage and frustration at being fined so heavily by the king for marrying Anne Stafford. It was enough to convince Gray that the conversation was worth continuing. As each man had a separate commitment for dinner that morning, Gray suggested they meet up again later.

  That afternoon, Sir Thomas Gray went looking for Scrope and met him in the street. Together they went to see the earl of March. Walter Lucy was with him. In their presence Scrope asked Gray what he reckoned the earl of March should do? He had three options, Gray said, repeating the three strategies which Lucy had told him Scrope had outlined. He could take the field, he could go to Wales, or he could attack Henry at sea. The earl of March confirmed that ‘his heart and his will was full thereto’, if he had sufficient forces at his disposal.50

  Scrope asked the earl of March if he had discussed any of this with anyone before now.

  ‘Why?’ asked the earl of March.

  ‘Because I have heard the earl of Cambridge and Sir Thomas here have spoken in this manner to you.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Walter Lucy.’

  Scrope then went on to expound on the dangers the earl faced. As Scrope put it,

  if [the earl of March] drew near to Lollards they would subvert this land and the Church; if he drew to Wales it should undo both him and this land; if they made him take a field [the king] would come on him with all [his] host and destroy him; and if he went into Wales he should be enfamined and lost; and if he went by sea with vessels of advantage, he should be taken and undone …51

  Hearing these things, the earl promised Scrope that he would do nothing hasty – he ‘would not be stirred until [Scrope] came again’. Walter Lucy promised likewise that he would not do anything treasonable for the time being. After this, the earl and Lucy took to their horses and left.

  Following their departure, Gray told Scrope ‘that the earl of Cambridge and he and others … would meet with the earl of March at his house at Cranbury’ on the following day. Scrope was not tempted to join them. Instead he left Gray and took the ferry across the River Itchen to his lodgings. And he sent a verbal message by one of his servants to Walter Lucy – the man who had originally informed him of the emerging plot – stating that he was amazed that such things were being discussed at this present time, for plainly the king ‘had men on every side to espy such governance’.

  The reply came back that ‘they did but hunt’ and they were not yet ready to take action. Scrope had to be content with that.

  Monday 22nd

  Business was conducted in Henry’s name today from both Southampton and Bishop’s Waltham.52 It was at Bishop’s Waltham that he had a letter drawn up directing the council to pay £500 per year to his brother Thomas during the minority of Henry Beaufort, son of the late John Beaufort, earl of Somerset. The king specified that the arrears since 1410 should be paid, and that 2,000 marks a year should be paid since 14 July 1413.53 The total was £5,166 13s 4d – hardly an easy sum for the treasurer to find at short notice. At Bishop’s Waltham too a letter was drawn up in Henry’s name ordering that a great tabernacle of gold, which had once belonged to his grandfather, John of Gaunt, should be delivered to the archbishop of York, the bishop of Durham and several other northern prelates, as security for the repayment of £993 that they had lent him.54

  Also today, but at Southampton, Henry granted the duchy of Lancaster to sixteen trustees with the power to regrant it to his heirs. Like all the other men who were making their wills, he was beginning to consider putting his affairs in order in case he died. Those named as his trustees were the archbishop of Canterbury, Henry and Thomas Beaufort, Thomas Langley, Richard Courtenay, the duke of York, the earls of Arundel and Westmorland, Lord Fitzhugh, Lord Scrope, Sir Roger Leche, Sir Walter Hungerford, Sir John Phelip, Hugh Mortimer, John Woodhouse and John Leventhorpe. The name that sticks out in that list is that of Henry Scrope. Despite any differences they may have had about the king’s war policy, Scrope was clearly still very much in the king’s favour.55

  *

  The duke of Albany knew there were plots afoot in England. The list of eighteen names handed to the earl of Cambridge indicates that the Scots were aware of discontented factions. They probably also knew that some men were waiting for news of a northern rising before they would take action in the name of the earl of March. They were also aware that Mordach was back in Henry’s custody and was not now going to be handed over as agreed. Consequently about this time they sent two armed expeditions into the north of England. One, led by the earl of Douglas, went into Westmorland and burnt the town of Penrith; the other went into Northumberland. The latter managed to penetrate just six miles before coming across Sir Robert Umphraville at Yeavering, near Kirknewton. Umphraville had only four hundred men with him but managed to rout the Scots, killing sixty men, capturing four hundred and sending the remainder running for twelve miles back into Scotland.56

  If the copied indenture that Cresswell had showed Gray the Friday just past was Umphraville’s promise to allow the Scots to pass, then either it was a forgery or part of a plan of entrapment. Umphraville never meant to observe its terms. Cambridge had been quite foolish to believe it.

  *

  Gray and Cambridge gathered this evening for supper at the earl of March’s house at Cranbury, five miles north of Southampton. The plot was no doubt discussed, and so too the warnings of Lord Scrope. There was clearly a feeling that if they actually did nothing, they were innocent. The promise they had given Scrope not to act in the immediate future did not extend to not planning or plotting – or ‘hunting’, as Lucy put it.

  *

  In Paris, the five hundred Cabochien supporters of John the Fearless who had been exempted from the Peace of Arras were finally banished from the city.57 No doubt most went straight to John himself, who was then at Rouvres. Their part in the drama of the year 1415 was not yet over.

  Wednesday 24th

  The Portuguese fleet finally set sail from Lisbon. To the great relief of the French spies who were watching, it did not move north but south, towards the Straits of Gibraltar. It was not going to join with Henry’s fleet in an attack on France; it was heading to Ceuta, in Morocco.

  *

  The duke of Clarence’s retinue was mustered on St Catherine’s Hill. The duke of Gloucester’s was at Romsey; the earl of Oxford’s was at Wallopforth; and the earl of Huntingdon’s on Swanwick Heath with the companies of Lord Botreaux, Lord Grey of Ruthin, Roland Leinthal, and much of the royal household. The men of Sir Thomas Erpingham and Sir Lewis Robesart gathered on Southampton Common; other contingents were at Hampton Hill.58 More than twelve thousand men were now in the area, and even more horses.

  It was inevitable that there would be discontent. Henry directed a proclamation to be made telling all those who felt they had been harshly treated to complain to the steward of the treas
ury or the comptroller of the royal household. He also had it proclaimed that all knights, esquires and yeomen in the army were to find sufficient provisions for themselves in France for three months. This was an extraordinary amount of food for each man to provide: feeding the army was a serious concern.59

  Part of the problem was that Henry was very late in setting out. Even if his original orders to take ships to Southampton by 8 May had been drawn up in the expectation that they would not actually set out until 1 June, that date had already slipped by almost two months. Even the second revised departure date of 8 July was over two weeks ago. Henry must have been getting frantic. Much more of a delay and there would be little time left for a campaign in France. And his finances were going more awry all the time. Today he had to reiterate his pledge that jewels would be made available to cover the second quarter’s wages.60 And he issued more licences for lords who had received jewels or plate as security to dispose of the said items if they were not redeemed within a certain time. Two days ago, when he had ordered John of Gaunt’s tabernacle to be handed over to the prelates, he had licensed the recipients to sell it if he had not redeemed it within a certain time. Now he issued a licence for Sir Robert Chalons to dispose of a cup of gold, two bowls of silver gilt and a little basin of silver gilt delivered to him for security of £45. Without these licences, the pledges were of only notional value.61

  A sense of financial desperation in the royal household may be inferred from such changes of strategy. When Henry had originally planned to sail, he had envisaged paying for the campaign through subsidies and loans. The need for money had grown more intense over the first half of the year; and by the end of April he was resigned to offering items from the royal treasure as security. By early June he was pawning religious artefacts too; and by mid-June he was selling off or breaking up the non-essential utensils of the royal household. Now he had been forced to allow treasures that had been handed over as security to be broken up and sold. The whole six-month progress of financial retreat must have taken a heavy toll on the nerves of the men around Henry who had to deliver this news to the king. He cannot have been pleased to hear that valuable treasures owned by his ancestors had to be broken up to pay for his war. It was not his idea of great kingliness – to dispose of his inheritance. The pressure told on one officer in particular. Today the aged Sir Thomas Erpingham was replaced as steward of the household by Sir Walter Hungerford. One suspects he may have asked to stand down, on account of his age and his inability to cope with the administrative pressure.