1415: Henry V's Year of Glory

by Mortimer, Ian

  Bordiu went on to say that, ‘with the help of the Holy Spirit’, he expected the town to fall within eight days. This was because the defences on the landward side and on two flanks had now been ‘well and truly breached’. The town within the walls was ‘totally destroyed’. The English had now managed to cut off the water supply below Montivilliers, thereby diverting the River Lézarde, draining the flooded area and cutting off the town’s water supply. When the town finally fell, the king was not going to enter it but ‘stay in the field’ meaning he meant to continue his planned march through France. On this Bordiu was quite specific: ‘he intends to go to Montivilliers, and from there to Dieppe, afterwards to Rouen and then to Paris’.8

  Much of this was wishful thinking. Regardless of how long the town held out, it was now surrounded by thick, stinking mud, suffused with inedible fish and animal entrails, bones and excrement … It could only grow more dangerous – especially as the English troops had to trudge through it to get closer to the breach in the walls. The dysentery was not going to go away, and the town would require a substantial workforce to rebuild it as well as to maintain it. And the food was running out. About this time Henry issued an order, via his brother the regent in England, to the constable of Dover Castle and the warden of the Cinque Ports, to send each and every fisherman with his boat and tackle to Harfleur, there to provide fish for the king’s army.9 The chances of Henry marching on Paris in the near future were non-existent.

  *

  The messenger who had left Harfleur two days earlier had travelled through the night to Paris, and then on to St Denis, to convey de Gaucourt’s plea for help to the dauphin. At first the dauphin was reluctant to receive him, having other business to attend to; but after the urgency of the situation had been established, the messenger was granted an audience.10 He can have left the dauphin in no doubt as to the conditions in the town, and pleaded for a relieving army. If none was forthcoming then the town would soon have to surrender, to the detriment of the throne of France.11 The dauphin was able to say that a large army was already gathering: the summons of 28 August and the letters to the royal dukes of 1 September would result in a large force assembling at Rouen. If the town could hold out for a little while longer, the French would drive the English into the sea.

  There was just one problem. Henry had declared that, after he had taken Harfleur, he would march on to Rouen. We do not know if this news was publicly being circulated – it only appears in the letters sent to Bordeaux. But if the French did know, then it would have soon become apparent that both sides were going to converge on the same town.

  Saturday 7th

  The letter from Richard Courtenay to Jean Fusoris, carried by Raoul le Gay and confiscated in Montivilliers, arrived in Paris yesterday. On receipt, Fusoris was arrested and thrown into the prison known as the Little Châtelet. He was taken out today and led before the president of the parlement, Jean de Vailly, and charged with high treason.12 Poor Fusoris had been duped by Courtenay. His presence in England that summer, coupled with the incriminating evidence supplied by Raoul le Gay, did not help his case. The old astrologer-clockmaker must have been in fear of his life from the moment the men-at-arms knocked on his door.

  *

  In London, Richard Gurmyn, the baker accused of Lollardy in the trial of John Claydon, was led before the authorities in St Paul’s. His trial probably took much the same form as Claydon’s, involving the declaration that he was a manifest heretic. The sentence of burning was inevitable. Some protested that he had taken advantage of the king’s offer of a pardon, made on 9 December 1414. Thomas Falconer, however was having none of it. When the church authorities turned over Gurmyn to him for punishment he did not allow any time for the guilty man to locate his letters of pardon – if indeed he had them. Nor did he bother writing another letter to Henry. He simply had the pyre built at Smithfield, had Gurmyn dragged there, and burned him to death.13

  Tuesday 10th

  In Paris, the old king attended a solemn procession and Mass in the cathedral of Notre Dame, praying for victory ‘with the help of God and the intercession of the saints’. When this had finished he travelled to the abbey of St Denis and there heard another Mass. The relics of the patron saint were exhibited, and the king was handed the sacred war banner of France, the Oriflamme, which he then passed to the similarly aged Guillaume Martel, seigneur de Bacqueville. With that symbolic gesture, France was now at war. If the banner was unfurled on a battlefield, it was an instruction to the French to take no prisoners.14

  *

  In London, it was John Claydon’s turn to face the wrath of the pyre. No pardon was forthcoming from France. Indeed, Falconer’s letter had probably only recently been received. His friend Gurmyn had gone before him, and that perhaps gave him strength. Claydon was taken out of prison and put into the barrel, which was surrounded by faggots, and made to endure the agony of the killing flames. He had probably never even heard of Jan Hus. Yet he shared the same fate – for daring to seek spiritual consolation in a book.15

  *

  As Claydon screamed his last, one of the king’s best friends, Richard Courtenay, fell ill. It was the men around the king who were suffering most now from the dysentery. His tent was positioned close to the king’s, and sometimes during the siege Courtenay had shared the king’s own quarters. It must have been personally worrying for Henry to see one of his closest friends taken ill with the fever. It must also have been deeply psychologically disturbing to realise that, if God felt inclined to smite Bishop Courtenay with what men called ‘the bloody flux’, the king and all his army might die before the rubble and foetid muddy ditches of the town that had been Harfleur.16

  Bordiu had predicted the town would fall within eight days. This was the eighth day.

  Wednesday 11th

  In Constance, Jerome’s nerve failed. Rather than face the terrible fate of being burnt, he chose to recant and publicly assent to his faith in the Catholic Church. To this end he had written a confession in his own hand, which he read out at a special session of the council to judge his case. However, the form of his confession was not considered explicit or full enough, so he was required to rewrite it more explicitly. The date of 23 September was assigned for him to read this revised confession, which included his abjuration of the doctrines of John Wycliffe and his friend Jan Hus. On that day he would go so far as to approve of the burning of Jan Hus.17

  This is the last time Jerome will appear in this narrative; but it is worth noting that, on 26 May 1416, he withdrew his recantation and his renunciation of his faith in the teachings of Wycliffe and Hus. He stood up for himself, revoked his earlier confession and boldly declared himself to be a follower of Hus. He was burnt four days later and died in great agony, for he endured the flames much longer than Hus had done, screaming terribly throughout the ordeal. His bones and ashes were broken up and dumped in the Rhine, like those of his friend.18

  Friday 13th

  Another messenger from de Gaucourt reached the dauphin. This man was called Joven Lescot, and he had originally been smuggled out of the town in order to solicit aid from the constable, Charles d’Albret, who was then at Rouen. D’Albret had sent him with the Montjoye herald to the dauphin, who was at Vernon-sur-Seine. The message he delivered was similar to that of the earlier messenger, only more desperate. Again the dauphin promised that his father the king would soon be riding at the head of an army – but that is all he seems to have done directly to respond to the appeal for help.19

  Sunday 15th

  A month and a day after the army landed in France, Bishop Courtenay died of dysentery – dehydrated and feverish, excreting bloody diarrhoea. Henry was with him in his tent when he passed away, and closed his friend’s eyes with his own hands. So, this was God’s judgment on him, his ambitions and his expedition. Henry knew that many people in the outside world would see it that way. And he had lost a great friend, which must have affected his thinking. His judgment was so askew that, wiping the feet of
the dead man, he ordered that the bishop be taken to Westminster Abbey to be buried among the kings of England. It was not an appropriate resting place for a bishop of Norwich, but Henry could not see that. Grief, worry and pressure were clouding his mind. The monks of Westminster did as they were asked, of course; they could hardly refuse their king and patron; so the body of Bishop Richard Courtenay was taken to the royal sanctuary at Westminster Abbey and laid to rest. There it remains to this day, in the same grave – and in the same coffin – as Henry V himself.

  Just when the king was at this low ebb, the men of Harfleur rallied to drag him down further. The watchmen and guards on the main barbican outside the Porte Leure made a sally against the English guard, and set fire to the English defences. From his position at Graville, Henry would have left Courtenay’s tent to see the smoke of the burning faggots drifting down the valley and the enemy troops attacking his own soldiers. Later, inspecting the lines, he would perhaps have heard how the Frenchmen were shouting insults at the English for being so half-awake and lazy.20

  At about the same time, there were barges and galleys in the Seine, attempting to break through the English maritime blockade of the town. There seems to have been an attempt to break out from the town, timed to coincide with an attack from the river. De Gaucourt’s messengers to the dauphin and d’Albret were not only getting information out of the town but somehow they were getting information back in. Although Henry had sent the ships from Flanders home long ago, and had also sent back many English ships, those that remained with him held their defences, and when the sortie from Harfleur retreated, so too did the barges and galleys.21

  At Southampton, in the wake of the earl of Cambridge’s plot, when Henry had been urged to cancel his expedition, he had shown the necessary resolve of a great leader. Others might have seen the death of a close friend – and a bishop at that – as a sign that God was against him; Henry seems to have seen it rather as a personal test. Through such sacrifices he was being tempted to seek terms, or shelter, or retreat. But, of course, this was Henry V – and this is one part of the popular legend that is true: he would never give in. Tenacious in the extreme, this setback simply caused him to order an all-out attack on the barbican of the Porte Leure the following day.

  In preparation for the assault, Henry ordered that faggots be prepared to fill in the defensive ditches in front of the barbican. This was done through the night. From references to his watchfulness at night, one gets the impression that, as the men moved silently through the darkness, carrying the bundles of sticks, the king was watching, surveying, calculating and praying.

  Monday 16th

  It was Henry’s twenty-ninth birthday. No celebrations were likely. All he wanted was revenge for the previous day’s torments.

  The onslaught on the barbican in front of the Porte Leure was led by the young and ‘high-spirited’ John Holland, earl of Huntingdon, supported by his father-in-law Sir John Cornwaille and the newly-knighted Sir William Porter, as well as Sir Gilbert Umfraville, John Steward and Sir William Bourchier.22 These were the same men who had commanded the first reconnaissance of the shore at Harfleur on landing, and so may have formed a recognised crack squadron within the English army. In the afternoon a contingent of Frenchmen sallied out, trying to build on their success of the previous day. But Holland and his men met them head-on. Then, by shooting burning arrows, flinging torches and laying incendiary powders, they managed to set enough of the barbican on fire to force the defenders back to the main gate. Amid the burning parts of the barbican, shattered by cannon, the first English troops entered, and torched the rest of the defensive enclosure. Some Frenchmen were still there in the smoke, trying to beat down the flames; they were set upon by the English. Most realised their dire situation and fled inside the walls, blocking the entrance behind them with timber, stones, earth and dung.23

  The English, having taken the barbican, now worked to put the fires out. It was a struggle: it took two days to extinguish the blaze. The smoke rose in thick pungent wafts from the dung for another two weeks.

  Tuesday 17th

  Chroniclers differ in their explanations as to how negotiations began for the surrender of Harfleur. The eyewitness who wrote the Gesta claims that the English approached Raoul de Gaucourt, acting captain of the town, threatening the full application of the law of Deuteronomy – death for all the inhabitants, including women and children – but he spurned the offer, prompting Henry to order an all-out assault for the following day.24 This plan to storm the town is also mentioned in a letter that Henry himself later wrote to the citizens of London, but the townsmen decided to negotiate again this same night. Thomas Walsingham wrote that on the night of the 17th a man-at-arms was sent over the walls to the camp of Thomas, duke of Clarence. He entreated the duke to send word to his brother, the king, begging that a truce be called.25

  Both sources may be right. The townsmen may have first approached Thomas, rather than the king himself. By this reckoning, Henry sent messengers to demand the surrender of the town in the morning and, on being refused, organised a massive onslaught. His trumpeters proclaimed that all the seamen should join with the soldiers in a combined land-and-sea attack on the town. Henry had decided he could not wait any longer: the whole army would mount the walls that lay in patched ruins around the town. To facilitate this, towards dusk he ordered all the guns to start firing, blasting the remaining houses and walls with stones, and to continue all night. In this situation, knowing the fate that awaited them the next day, it would have been quite understandable if the men of Harfleur had decided that enough was enough and sent the man-at-arms to parley with Thomas, duke of Clarence. Thomas then told his brother. After this, Henry sent out Thomas Beaufort, and the elderly warriors, Lord Fitzhugh and Sir Thomas Erpingham, to negotiate with the townsmen in the middle of the night.

  The above vacillation on the part of the defenders suggests that they were now utterly desperate. But why did they first refuse to negotiate, and subsequently plead for peace, on the same day? There are several possible explanations. The first is that they learned over the course of the day that Henry was planning an all-out attack, and decided that it was better to surrender and hope for mercy than to fight to the death. (This is the explanation Henry himself gave in his letter of 22 September.) Another possibility is that Henry had so far refused to consider anything but an unconditional surrender whereas the duke of Clarence, who may well have himself been sick with dysentery by now, was known to be more amenable. The fact that de Gaucourt was now severely sick with dysentery himself probably sapped some of his fighting spirit.26 The position of the dauphin may have also been a factor. Two weeks earlier the men of Harfleur had entertained hopes of a French army coming to relieve them. But as yet the troops had not assembled in sufficient numbers, and neither the king nor the dauphin was at Rouen. The king was still at Poissy, where he ate dinner, before moving on to Meulan that afternoon.27 The dauphin was at Vernon. If the defenders had received confirmation of the lack of any approaching army during the course of the day, then they may well have despaired of their cause. If the French king did not move to help them, why should they risk their wives’ and children’s lives for his sake?

  Wednesday 18th

  It was full moon. In the early hours, Thomas Beaufort, Lord Fitzhugh and Sir Thomas Erpingham returned to Henry and passed on the terms offered by the townsmen. They begged the king of England, out of charity, to suspend the attacks on their town until the Sunday of Michaelmas (29 September).28 If the king or the dauphin had not come with a relieving army by then, they would surrender the town.

  Picture the king hearing these words, with the glow of a warming fire on his cheeks. It was at last the offer of a capitulation that he had wanted for so many weeks. But even Michaelmas was too long a delay, and if the French army caught him here, at the walls of Harfleur he would be trapped. Henry’s strategy was to take the town and then move his army away from the place as quickly as possible, drawing the French r
oyal forces away from Harfleur, and thereby allowing his men to rebuild it. So he told his uncle and the other two envoys to return to the town and tell de Gaucourt that, if the town was not surrendered when daylight came, there would be no further discussion of the matter.

  The men of Harfleur, who had held out heroically, were at the end of their strength. De Gaucourt himself later admitted that they were on their knees due to sickness and starvation.29 Their town was in ruins, and many of the townspeople had been killed. So they urged the English envoys to go back again to the king and to beg him for a truce to last until Sunday, 22 September, the feast of St Maurice. To guarantee their offer, they promised to send an embassy of lords, knights, esquires and burgesses of the town, today, at one o’clock in the afternoon. Twenty-four men would be hostages of the English. If a French army had not arrived by early afternoon on Sunday 22nd, the town would be surrendered unconditionally. The people of the town as well as the hostages – their bodies as well as their possessions – would be at Henry’s command, to do with as he wished. The sole proviso was that they should be allowed to send messengers to the king and the dauphin to inform them of this deadline.

  When the three envoys reported to Henry in the early hours, he knew he had won. The French army was still assembling, the French king and the dauphin were not yet at Rouen; there was no chance of them sending a relieving army so soon. And by accepting the surrender now, having threatened them all with death, he could show mercy in the hour of his triumph, exactly as Edward III had done at the siege of Calais, sparing the lives of the six burghers who came, with ropes around their necks and carrying the keys of the town. So he agreed. The cannon fell silent.