Chapter XVI: Introduction (15)

[Sidenote: Imprisonment and secret death of Richard.]

Meanwhile, Richard had been imprisoned in Pontefract Castle. In February a report was spread that he was dead. On this the Privy Council begged that, if still alive, he might be carefully secured. The answer was given that he was already dead, and a corpse was exhibited in London, the face of which, from the eyes to the chin, was left uncovered, the rest of the body being carefully clothed. This peculiar arrangement excited suspicions, which were probably groundless, but were further supported by the complete mystery which hung over the manner of the King’s death. Hunger and violence were both alleged; while some asserted that the corpse exhibited was not that of Richard, but of the priest Maudelin.[84]

[Sidenote: Hostile attitude of France and Scotland.]

[Sidenote: Useless and impolitic march into Scotland.]

His domestic enemies for the present silenced, Henry could look abroad. He made advances towards friendship with France, but it soon became plain that that kingdom was inclined to support the cause of the late King, whose young widow, Isabella, was the daughter of Charles VI. The title of King of England was refused to Henry, Isabella and her dowry demanded, and hostility thus kept continually alive. In Scotland, also, the same feeling showed itself. The King, Robert III., was confined by weakness of body and mind almost exclusively to the Isle of Bute; his brother, the Duke of Albany, was the real ruler of the country. Henry, who had a party in the country, and at whose court Dunbar, the Earl of March, the chief enemy of the Douglas family, was resident, thought it desirable to show his power. He therefore marched as far as Leith, demanding homage from the Scotch King similar to that claimed by his predecessors, but the Duke of Rothesay, heir-apparent, held firm in the Castle of Edinburgh, and want of provisions speedily obliged the English to beat a somewhat hasty retreat. As in the case of France, this transaction with Scotland established a constant hostility.

[Sidenote: Insurrection in Wales. Owen Glendower. 1400.]

In the other dependency of England affairs were still worse. Owen Glendower, a Welsh gentleman of good family educated in England, incensed at the rejection of a suit about a certain property of Lord Grey of Ruthyn, had roused the national animosity, and claimed for himself the title of Prince of Wales. For the present Henry could do nothing effective against him. The war assumed a national character; the Welsh were expelled from the towns in the Marches. Edward I.’s statutes against the Welsh were re-enacted, even including that which ordered the destruction of the bards. The conduct of the war was placed nominally in the hands of Henry, Prince of Wales, a lad of thirteen. But the whole of the following year Glendower’s successes continued. Grey of Ruthyn and Edward Mortimer, uncle of the imprisoned Prince, the Earl of March, were taken prisoners, and an expedition undertaken by Henry in person towards the close of the year was forced to retire from the mountainous strongholds of the Welsh. The storms and snowdrifts seemed to fight against them in that wild district, and gave rise to the belief that Glendower was a magician.

[Sidenote: Quarrel with the Percies. 1402.]

[Sidenote: The pretended Richard.]

[Sidenote: Causes of the quarrel with Northumberland.]

Could these various enemies but find some powerful adherents in England, it was plain that Henry’s position would be precarious. A quarrel with those who had hitherto been his chief supporters, the Percies of Northumberland, supplied this element of danger; while a strange report, that the late King was still alive in Scotland, gave a central point round which all Henry’s enemies might gather. About Whitsuntide, in 1402, the rumour reached England that Richard had escaped from Pontefract, and had made his appearance at the house of the Lord of the Isles, by whom he was handed over to the Court, and there kept so strictly that no man could get sight of him. The existence of such a pretender was certain. It was in vain that Henry attempted to suppress the rumour by executions; in vain that he even proceeded to execute certain Franciscan monks who had been engaged in spreading it. The secrecy which covered Richard’s death, and which for some reason Henry could not break, prevented any clear proof of the imposture. The false Richard is believed to have been a man of weak intellect, called Thomas Ward of Trumpington. The reason of the King’s quarrel with the Percies is by no means clear, but various causes of discontent can be shown. The Duke of Albany, after much fighting on the borders, had made an expedition on a large scale against Carlisle. On its return home, the army, heavily laden with booty, was met by the Percies, and defeated at Homildon Hill. The defeat was complete; many Scotch nobles fell into the hands of the English, among them Murdoch, Earl of Fife, the son and heir of the Earl of Albany, and Douglas, Earl of Angus. For such prisoners the Percies expected a large ransom. Their anger and disappointment was great when the King took Murdoch from them and claimed the ransom of the rest. A somewhat similar affair took place in Wales. Of Glendower’s great prisoners, Grey of Ruthyn was allowed to ransom himself, a privilege refused to Mortimer; when the younger Percy, Hotspur, who had married Mortimer’s sister, urged his claim, he met with a rebuff. The King also owed the Percies large sums of money; £20,000 was due to them, which the entanglement of the finances made it impossible to pay. The general feeling that they had been badly rewarded for the invaluable assistance they had afforded Henry, acting upon the unusually hot temper of the younger Percy, drove them into a change of policy.

[Sidenote: The Percies combine with Glendower.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Shrewsbury. July 23, 1403.]

[Sidenote: Submission of Northumberland. 1404.]

Before the end of the year 1402, they entered into negotiations with Glendower; and Mortimer, instead of attempting to gain his liberty, married the daughter of the insurgent chief, and recognized him as Prince of Wales. The Percies at the same time gained the assistance of their prisoner Douglas, and the conspiracy was completed by the support given to Glendower by France. On all sides the King’s difficulties seemed to increase. The Earl of Worcester joined the Percies; Richard’s old followers crowded to their standard, and an army, insidiously collected as though for an attack on Scotland, rapidly marched on Shrewsbury to make a junction with the Welsh. Thither Henry, with his son the Prince of Wales, hastened, and the decisive battle of Shrewsbury was fought, in which, after a keen struggle, Hotspur was killed, and most of the other leaders, including Worcester and Douglas, captured. Worcester and the other English leaders were beheaded; Douglas was retained in prison. The King had still to destroy the insurrection of the elder Percies in the North, where all the inhabitants of the country had taken the crescent--the livery of Northumberland. The royal army was, however, obviously too strong for opposition, and the Earl made his submission, and met the King at York. The House of Peers claimed as a right the trial of their fellow, and he was found guilty, not of high treason, but only of misdemeanour, and let off with a fine.

[Sidenote: Widespread conspiracy.]

[Sidenote: Flight of the young Earl of March. 1405.]

The great conspiracy was thus but half broken. Wales, Scotland, France, and the English malcontents were still in communication. From France, indeed, serious difficulties seemed to threaten. In presence of the weakness of Charles VI., the King of that country, the real power was disputed by his brother Louis of Orleans and his uncle the Duke of Burgundy. Louis had at this time the upper hand. He took in great dudgeon the events which had taken place in England; and rumours were abroad, strengthened by the distribution among the malcontents of Richard’s crest by the old Countess of Oxford, the mother of De Vere, the late King’s favourite. These rumours pointed to a great conspiracy, coupled with an invasion of Essex by France, in favour of the spurious Richard in Scotland. For a time the threat of invasion compelled the King to remain quiet; but after the French fleet, which had attacked the Isle of Wight and Plymouth, had been defeated at Portland, he was able to turn his attention to the North, and again to compel Northumberland to come to an explanation. But that explanation he found himself obliged to accept. Almost at the same time a fresh alarm met him. Lady Constance Spenser had contrived to withdraw the young Earl of March from Windsor, and to fly with him. She was shortly captured, and the young Prince brought back, but it was plain that the danger was great.

[Sidenote: Renewed activity of Northumberland, Scrope and Mowbray.]

In April the King went against Wales. His absence in that direction was at once taken advantage of by his northern enemies. The difficulty with which he could secure supplies was one of Henry’s main obstacles to success, and in the last Parliament the opposition had been headed by Sir Thomas Bardolph. That gentleman now appeared in close conjunction with Northumberland, assisting him to garrison his fortresses. At the same time Mowbray, the son of that Duke of Norfolk with whom Henry had quarrelled at the time of his banishment, and Scrope, the Archbishop of York, the brother of that Lord Scrope who had been Richard’s chancellor at the beginning of his reign, and whom that King had been forced to remove, joined the insurrection. The Earl of Westmoreland, who remained constantly faithful to Henry, was sent against them while Henry was engaged in Wales. Again, the royal army was too strong for the insurgents. Scrope and Mowbray were induced to disband their forces, and were then immediately apprehended. Gascoigne, the chief justice, was called upon to try them and convict them summarily. He was one of those constitutional lawyers who were gradually rising in England, and he refused to do so, pointing out that he should infringe the liberties both of the Church and the House of Lords. Henry found in Sir William Fulthorpe a more complacent judge. They were both beheaded, not without arousing, as Gascoigne had foreseen, the anger of the Lords. Upon the capture of his confederates, Northumberland fled with Bardolph to Scotland, but being refused an interview with the impostor, and mistrusting the honesty of Albany, he subsequently withdrew to Wales. It was there alone that the war continued, nor was it finally suppressed during the reign.

[Sidenote: Events which secured Henry’s triumph. 1406.]

[Sidenote: Capture of James of Scotland.]

[Sidenote: Murder of Orleans. 1407.]

[Sidenote: Final defeat and death of Northumberland.]

[Sidenote: Henry’s improved position.]

But, in the next two years, events occurred which at length placed Henry in a position of security. The friends of the Scotch King, fearing the ambition of Albany, which had already induced him to take the life of the Duke of Rothesay, the heir-apparent, determined to withdraw James, the King’s second son and heir-apparent, from danger. He therefore took ship for France, but on the way was captured by English cruisers, and brought a prisoner to Henry, who grimly remarked that they might as well have sent him direct to him, as he could have taught him French quite well. He justified this boast; for though he kept the young Prince prisoner, he gave him an education which, upon his subsequent release, well fitted him for the throne he occupied. Henry had now in his hands pledges of safety from all his enemies. The Earl of March was still with him; Murdoch of Fife, Albany’s son, served as a hostage for his father; while James served as security from all attacks from the royalist party in Scotland. The following year (1407) was still more fortunate. The overweening vanity of Orleans, his licentiousness, which, it is said, did not even spare the young Duchess of Burgundy, excited the anger of the Duke of Burgundy, the King’s cousin, to such a degree, that he caused the Duke of Orleans to be murdered in the streets of Paris. Henry’s chief enemy in France was thus removed. With Burgundy, who had lately inherited Flanders, and thus become the Prince of a trading nation and the champion of the city populations, he had much in common; and though he did not espouse his cause in any active manner, he felt secure from any immediate danger. Without his French allies, Owen Glendower was gradually driven back to the mountains of North Wales, and in despair, Northumberland and Bardolph again appeared in the North, took arms, and were defeated and killed at Bramham. Thus safe on the side of France, with Scotland pledged to peace by the captivity of its princes, the Percies finally defeated, and Owen Glendower confined to the limits of the purely Celtic part of Wales, Henry was at length triumphant.

[Sidenote: His enforced respect for the Commons.]

[Sidenote: Climax of their power. 1407.]

During the whole of these years of difficulty, the King had found it necessary to keep the Commons in good temper. Although he suffered from constant want of money, and in vain tried to induce his frequent Parliaments to act liberally towards him, he seems on no occasion to have employed illegal means for improving his position. It had become an accepted axiom, that consent of all the estates of the realm was necessary for the levying of taxes; and the Commons had made their position so good, that, in the very year of his final triumph, they ventured upon a quarrel with the Lords, claiming for themselves the exclusive right of originating grants, and insisting on the absence of the King while they were discussed. More than that, they had attempted, though unsuccessfully, to oblige the King to answer their petition of grievances before they made their grant, and succeeded in establishing the custom of appropriating their grants to special objects, and of paying them into the hands of treasurers of their own appointment. But their increase of power was chiefly visible in their interference with the royal expenditure and administration. In the fifth year of his reign, the King had been obliged to displace four of his ministers at the request of the Commons, to declare his intention of governing economically according to law, and to name his Privy Council in Parliament. And in the eighth year of his reign, when already he seemed upon the point of triumphing over his enemies, he was compelled to grant his assent to a petition of the Commons, which put as strict limitations upon his power as any to which Richard, even at the time of his greatest depression, had submitted. He had to name sixteen counsellors, by whose advice solely he was to be guided. His ordinary revenue was to be wholly appropriated to his household and the payment of his debts. No officer of the household was to hold his place for life or for a fixed term. The council was to determine nothing which the common law was capable of determining; and the elections of knights were regulated. At the head of this council was put the Prince of Wales.

[Sidenote: Explained by the King’s failing health.]

[Sidenote: Renewed vigour at end of reign.]

It is difficult to understand how the King should submit to this arrangement, which virtually established a strictly limited monarchy, just at the moment of his success. It is perhaps explained by his failing health. A disease had attacked his face, which changed into a form of leprosy, and during the remainder of his life he was subject to attacks of epilepsy. It was not unnatural that he should wish to withdraw somewhat from public affairs. Under these circumstances, it is not quite clear how far he is to be credited with the remaining events of his reign. But the prudence and state-craft exhibited in them, which could hardly have been expected from so young a man as Prince Henry, and the more vigorous opposition which he subsequently made to the demands of the Commons, would seem to show that he was still practically ruler. This restoration of vigour is marked by his refusal, towards the close of his reign, to grant any extension of the right of liberty of speech, and by the humble tone adopted by the Parliament in the thirteenth year of his reign, when he was entreated to declare that he was not offended, and that he regarded them as his loyal subjects.

[Sidenote: Henry’s foreign policy. Marriages.]

Having secured his position at home, though not, as has been seen, without some sacrifices, the King’s attention was chiefly directed towards securing the permanence of his dynasty by foreign matrimonial alliances, and to obtaining a strong position abroad by interfering in French politics. His two sisters were already respectively Queens of Castile and Portugal. He had himself married, in 1403, a Princess of Navarre. As a husband for his eldest daughter he procured Louis, Count Palatine, the son and heir of Rupert, King of the Romans; while his younger daughter married Eric, who had consolidated a great Scandinavian monarchy in the North.

[Sidenote: Policy in France. 1410.]

[Sidenote: Success of his policy.]

In France he made his weight felt by alternately siding with one or other of the great parties which divided that kingdom. His natural connection would have been the Burgundians; and he first attached himself so far to that party as to send a considerable army to their assistance. A battle fought near St. Cloud (1411), in which the Armagnacs (as the friends of Orleans were now called) were worsted, for the time rendered the Duke of Burgundy the master of France. Henry chose this opportunity to change sides, and entered into an arrangement with the defeated princes, by which he was secured the full possession of Guienne. He intended at the same time to have led an army into France, and to have imitated the career of Edward III. The national danger produced a temporary friendship between the French parties, and Burgundy, at a meeting held at Auxerre, succeeded in persuading the Armagnacs to annul their arrangement with the English. Henry’s health prevented him from leading the expedition, as he intended; but an army, under the Duke of Clarence, his second son, laid waste Maine and Touraine, and was only stopped by the payment of a large sum of money. After this Clarence withdrew to complete the conquest of Guienne. Thus, though unable to fulfil his ambitious project of invasion, Henry had contrived to make his position abroad very different from what it was at the beginning of his reign, when the French could refuse him the royal title, and paralyze his home policy by a threat of invasion.

[Sidenote: His alliance with the Church.]

[Sidenote: Persecuting statute. 1401.]

[Sidenote: Views of the nation with regard to the Church.]

From one point of view, as a usurper founding a new dynasty, he had now been quite successful. As a preserver of society, he probably regarded himself as not less so. Though the son of John of Gaunt, the favourer of Wicliffe, and not averse in his youth to the doctrines of that teacher, he had seen that Lollardism pointed, not only to ecclesiastical, but to political changes. From the beginning of the reign he had determined that the preservation of the Church in all its privileges and possessions was the surest means of checking the rising democracy. He had therefore been always its staunch supporter. In pursuance of this policy, in the second year of his reign, he had given his assent to a persecuting statute, formed, it seems probable, on the petition of the clergy, without the participation of the Commons. This statute, which is known under the title of “De Hæretico comburendo,” forbade teaching and preaching without the license of a bishop, to whom also was given the right of condemning heretical books and writings, while the State undertook to carry out the bishop’s sentence. Should any person thus condemned continue in his heresy, he was to be regarded as relapsed, and handed over to the civil arm, to be publicly burned. The first victim of this statute was William Sautré, at one time parish priest of Lynn, and involved in the treason of Kent and Huntingdon. On his persisting in the errors with which he was charged, the new law was carried into effect. The persecution once begun did not cease without more victims, and produced the effect, so common in cases of persecution, of driving the Lollards into further extremes of fanaticism. The germ of socialism which no doubt existed in the Lollard doctrine, and which showed itself in the constant demand for the abolition of the wealth of the clergy, alarmed the barons, and made them strong supporters of orthodoxy. The Commons, on the other hand, although they appear to have differed in feeling at different parts of the reign, were on the whole willing enough, while supporting orthodoxy of faith, to countenance the secularization of Church property. Indeed, they went so far in this direction, that in the year 1410, in answer to the reiterated request of the King for a settled yearly subsidy for his life, they pointed out to him the advisability of appropriating some of the ecclesiastical revenues, which would be enough, they said, to supply him with 15 earls, 1500 knights, and 6200 men-at-arms for military service. They begged also that those condemned for heresy might be withdrawn from the bishop’s jurisdiction, and tried by secular courts.[85]

[Sidenote: Henry’s jealousy of the Prince of Wales.]

[Sidenote: Henry’s death.]

The popularity of the Prince of Wales, his position as head of his father’s Council, not unnaturally gave the King some uneasiness in his last years. It seems not improbable that, having been once put at the head of the Council, he virtually performed many of the duties of the Government. Documents are extant in which he seems to be regarded as the King’s representative. Moreover, the course of events seems to show certain changes of policy which can be explained in this way. It is evident from his after policy, that he was much attached to the Burgundian party in France. We may therefore credit him with the assistance sent to them, which proved so useful to them at the Battle of St. Cloud, especially as the force was commanded by his friend, Sir John Oldcastle. The sudden change of foreign policy coincides in time with the King’s altered tone in replying to the petitions of the Commons. These changes may very probably mark a determination on the part of the King to re-establish his authority, too much weakened by the position and popularity of the Prince. The stories of the Prince’s wild life in London are mentioned by writers who are almost contemporary, yet do not seem to agree well with what is certainly known of his industry in public business. They, as well as the strange travesty of Oldcastle, a good soldier and stern religious enthusiast, into Shakspeare’s jovial knight, Sir John Falstaff, are perhaps based on the malicious view taken by the orthodox of Oldcastle’s religious tendencies. It is well known that one of the charges alleged against all enthusiastic religionists is immorality. Prince Henry’s subsequent prosecution and punishment of Oldcastle would be represented as the discharge of his old favourites. The aspiring and dangerous character of the Prince, in the eyes of his father, is represented by the story which describes him as having taken the crown from his father’s bedside during one of his fits, and placed it on his own head; and having answered to the remorseful observations of the King as to the unjust manner in which he had gained it, that he “was prepared to guard it against the world in arms.” It is at all events certain that coolness existed between father and son at the close of the reign. The French expedition was intrusted, not to the Prince of Wales, but to the Duke of Clarence, and for the last year and a half Prince Henry was removed from his position as President of the Council. The disease which had so long tormented Henry came to a fatal termination on the 20th of March 1413.

HENRY V.

1413-1422.

Born 1388 = Catherine of France.
|
Henry VI.

CONTEMPORARY PRINCES.

_Scotland._ | _France._ | _Germany._ | _Spain._
| | |
James I., 1405. | Charles VI., 1380. | Sigismund, 1410. | John II., 1406.

POPES.--John XXII., 1410. Martin V., 1417.

_Archbishops._ | _Chancellors._
|
Thomas Arundel, 1397. | Cardinal Beaufort, 1413.
Henry Chicheley, 1414. | Thomas Longley, 1417.

[Sidenote: Fortunate opening of his reign. 1413.]

The position of Henry V. on coming to the throne contrasts sharply with that of his predecessor. Henry IV., with disputed title, and in the midst of excited passions of faction, in which he had himself taken a prominent share, had to work out for himself the establishment of his dynasty and the restoration of political order. His son entered into the fruits of his labour. He had but to continue his father’s policy. The dynasty seemed secure, the apparatus of government was in good working order, and the new King, already practised in the work of government, brought with him that popularity which brilliant qualities, a handsome person, and the vigour of youth, are sure to secure. The painstaking prudence of the late King, overshadowed as it was by his ill-health and gloomy character, was forgotten, and the hopes of the nation were fixed upon the fortunate youth whose faults as yet had been but those which are easily pardoned as the natural wildness incident to his age.

[Sidenote: General amnesty and release of prisoners.]

The young King seemed to please himself with the idea that his peaceful accession was to complete the healing of faction in the country, and to begin a period of glory and happiness. He made but few changes in the ministry of his father, but both Thomas Arundel, the Archbishop, and Sir William Gascoigne were removed from their offices. It is possible that they may have been the advisers of the late King during that period when he was at enmity with his son. Already, before his coronation, of their own free will the nobles did him homage; and his Parliament granted him without difficulty the tax on wool for four years. To complete the general harmony, he published an amnesty, dismissed many political prisoners, and the greater part of his Scottish captives, and entered into negotiations for the liberty of the Scotch King. He even went so far as to reinstate both the Earl of March, the real claimant to the throne, and Henry Percy, son of Hotspur, his father’s persistent enemy, in their property and position. The body of Richard II. was removed from Langley, and honourably interred in Westminster. The past was, as it were, to be forgotten, and Henry would rule as the popular and accepted King of all parties.

[Sidenote: Signs of slumbering discontent.]

[Sidenote: The Lollards. 1414.]

In the midst of this show of security and peace there were, however, visible signs that his father’s work was not yet completed. The royal favour shown to the Church and to the orthodox party during the last reign, and the persecution which had fallen upon heresy, had not by any means destroyed the Lollards. The same policy had still to be pursued. The religious, it might be called the bigoted, tendency of the house of Lancaster was very strong in the young King. He had been one of the chief petitioners against heresy in 1406, and had shared in and superintended some of the religious executions; especially is mentioned that of John Badby, in 1410. The Prince had interrupted this man’s execution, and attempted the conversion of the half-burnt sufferer; finding him firm, however, he allowed the execution to be completed. This tendency induced him to enter into close alliance with the Church, and throughout his reign to adopt the language of religious enthusiasm, pretending to regard himself as the appointed instrument of God’s vengeance on the sins of the French. He thus became the willing agent of the clergy in completing their persecution of the sectarians, and listened readily to the exaggerated reports for which the conduct of the Lollards afforded some ground. The head of this party was now Sir John Oldcastle, who sat as a Peer in right of his wife under the title of Lord Cobham. His castle of Cowling, in Kent, afforded shelter to their persecuted teachers, while his high character and old friendship with the King made his influence important. The Archbishop determined to attack this man, at first pretending that he desired his conversion only. He placed in Henry’s hands an heretical book which had been found in an illuminator’s shop, and which belonged to Oldcastle. Henry tried first of all to argue with Oldcastle (who, however, denied having read the book), but could not convert him. The duties of friendship being now fulfilled, the Church was allowed to take the matter in hand. The heretic appeared several times before his judges, but firmly refused to depart from his points, that the Pope was Antichrist, and that in the Lord’s Supper, though the body of Christ might be present, yet the bread was bread. This firmness produced the only possible result, and he was condemned to be burnt; but in the interval allowed him before the completion of his sentence, he managed to escape.[86]

The attack upon their chief roused the Lollards, and they are said to have entered into a general conspiracy for surprising and mastering the King and his brothers at Eltham, during the festivities of Christmas. Henry had early news of a meeting which was to be held on the 7th of January 1414, in St. Giles’ Fields. It is quite unproved how far the intentions of the conspirators really reached. Henry, with the Church behind him, was ready to believe anything. He feared, perhaps, an insurrection similar to Wat Tyler’s. Causing, therefore, the gates of the city to be closed, he spread armed men round the place of meeting, and as the Lollards approached, singly or in small bodies, they were seized. The news that the King’s forces were abroad soon spread, and prevented any great number from falling into his hands. A jury was hastily summoned to declare that Oldcastle had treasonable plans, and a price was set on his head. The same jury then proceeded to try the thirty-nine prisoners, all of whom were either hanged or burnt. This event was followed by a still stricter proscription of heretical preachers and books. Chicheley, who succeeded Arundel as Archbishop this year, followed in his predecessor’s steps, and a statute was passed by which all judges and municipal authorities were bidden to apprehend and try Lollards, while conviction of heresy entailed confiscation of goods.

[Sidenote: Henry’s reasons for the impolitic French war.]

Henry prided himself on having won his first victory in the cause of the Church; but his naturally ambitious character led him to desire triumphs of another kind. It seems indeed as if a strange combination of motives impelled him to take the false step which gave the character to his reign, and plunged the country into a lengthy and ultimately disastrous war with France. His father is said to have urged him, with mistaken worldly wisdom, to withdraw the minds of his subjects from dangerous topics by filling them with thoughts of military glory. The Church, frightened by the suggestions of confiscation in the last reign, urged him to pursue the same course. The natural but mistaken admiration for military glory induced him to listen readily to their advice, while the wickedness and misery exhibited by the French nation at once afforded him an admirable opportunity, and may have suggested to his fanatical mind, that it was his duty to punish such vice, and to reduce such turbulence into order. Experience proved, as it often has proved, the mistake, nay, the wickedness, of averting domestic dangers by the wanton pursuit of warlike success. Meanwhile, at first, and during the whole of this King’s short life, the step seemed perfectly successful. The reign, as a period of English history, is almost devoid of interest. The attention of the nation was centred in a French war.

[Sidenote: Expulsion of the Burgundians from Paris.]

[Sidenote: Attempt at national government.]

Since the Duke of Clarence had secured Guienne the state of France had become only more deplorable. The Treaty of Auxerre produced no real union between the factions. There was a certain show of national action under the pressure of a threatened invasion from England; the King and the Great Council of France sat in Paris; the States General were summoned, and under the influence of the University certain reforms introduced. But the death of Henry IV. prevented for the time all danger of invasion; and the cause of union being removed, the factions again separated. The Duke de Guienne, the French King’s eldest son, and representative of the crown during his father’s fits of madness, was devoted to the wildest licentiousness, and disliked his gloomy father-in-law, John of Burgundy. He began to intrigue for the restoration of the Orleanist Princes. The ruffianly populace of Paris, headed by the guild of butchers, and led by Caboche, a skinner, were devotedly attached to the Burgundians. A fierce and murderous uproar arose; but its violence was such, that the better class of citizens were aroused, expelled the Cabochiens, who fled to the Duke of Burgundy, and readmitted the Armagnacs, as the Orleanists were now called. The counter-revolution was complete, the Armagnacs got possession of the government, attacked the Burgundian Duke, and drove him before them, till they were checked at Arras. A temporary truce was then patched up; but the Duke of Guienne soon after contrived for a moment to banish both parties from the capital, and to establish a sort of national government.

[Sidenote: Henry’s double diplomacy and outrageous claims.]

It was at this time that Henry V. began to meddle in French affairs. Already, during the retreat to Arras, Burgundy had opened negotiations with him, and these, in his anger against the Duke of Guienne, he now pressed still more warmly. Meanwhile, Henry negotiated also with the central authority in Paris. By this double negotiation, which included a plan for the marriage of Henry, on the one hand, with Catherine of France, and on the other, with Catherine of Burgundy, Henry made Burgundy neutral, while he pressed claims on the unfortunate French monarch of so outrageous a description, that he must have intended by securing their rejection to give himself a plausible ground for war. His first demand was nothing less than the cession of the whole French monarchy. When this was refused, his ambassadors restricted their demand to all the countries ceded to Edward III. by the Peace of Brétigny, as well as Normandy, the coast of Picardy, Anjou, Maine and Touraine, the suzerainty of Brittany and Flanders, 1,600,000 crowns, as the residue of King John’s ransom, with the hand of the Princess Catherine, and a dowry of 2,000,000 crowns. The Duke of Berri, the King’s uncle, was at that time the chief member of the government. He naturally refused Henry’s enormous demands, but offered all the districts of Aquitaine to the south of the Charente, and 600,000 crowns as dowry for the Princess.

[Sidenote: His preparations.]

All this while, Henry continued his preparations, raised troops, borrowed ships from Holland and Zeeland, and summoned in April a great council of Peers.[87] He there declared his intention of seeking his rights in France, appointed his brother John, Duke of Bedford, Lieutenant of the kingdom, and fixed the conditions of the contracts which he made with nobles for supplying him with soldiers.[88] He arranged also the manner in which the spoil was to be divided, and other details for the supply of the army. The devotion of the Church was to supply him with the means of meeting these vast expenses. Archbishop Chicheley and the Churchmen, fearing, no doubt, the democratic tendencies of the Commons, were willing to make some sacrifice. They agreed that no foreigners should hold benefices, and thus allowed the King to use the incomes of all the priories of the foreign orders of the kingdom to the number of 122. The proceeds of this transaction, increased by loans from foreigners, the pawning of his jewels, and the pledging of the tax on wool, supplied him with finances. An embassy from France, with still larger offers, including Limousin, and a dowry of 800,000 crowns, produced no improvement in the relations between the two countries.

[Sidenote: He lands in France. 1415.]

Before Charles VI. could reply to the despatch of his ambassador, announcing the rejection of these terms, on the 3rd of August, the English army, of about 6000 men-at-arms and 24,000 archers, was already embarked. On the 14th of August it landed at the mouth of the Seine, where Havre de Grace now is. No steps were taken to prevent the disembarkation. The kingdom was in a state of fearful misery and disorder. The conduct of the war was given to the Armagnacs, Charles d’Albret was appointed constable; the Duke of Burgundy therefore held aloof, and the English had, in fact, only one half of the country against them.

[Sidenote: Conspiracy of Cambridge.]

An event had occurred before the English embarkation which, by proving to the King that his position was not so secure as he thought, may have made him still more determined in his present course. He was engaged at Southampton preparing his expedition, when a conspiracy was discovered, in which the King’s cousin Richard, brother of the Duke of York, and lately created Earl of Cambridge, and one of his most trusted counsellors, Henry Scrope of Masham, were implicated. They were accused of an intention to take Edmund, Earl of March, with them into Wales, to crown him there, and declare him rightful King, if Richard were really dead. They had also summoned from Scotland Thomas of Trumpington, the false Richard. The Earl of Cambridge had married Ann of Mortimer, the sister of the Earl of March. We have here the beginning of that close union between the supporters of the legitimate line and the House of York, which again appears in the Wars of the Roses. Cambridge and Scrope were both executed.

[Sidenote: Capture of Harfleur.]

The first place to be attacked was Harfleur; it was bravely defended by the garrison under the Sire d’Estouteville. The inhabitants were told by the Court to take courage and trust to the King, but no help was sent them, though 14,000 or 15,000 men were within reach. On the 22nd of September they were compelled to capitulate. The conquered town was treated as Calais had been; the wealthier inhabitants were put to ransom, the goods seized, the people given their choice of leaving the city or becoming English. But this success had been hardly earned, the losses both by sickness and in fighting had been great. A large number of invalids had to be sent back to England. With little more than half his army Henry could venture no further into France. He determined to march along the coast to Calais. The strictest discipline was maintained in the little band, and the King strove to foster in it a religious and enthusiastic spirit; pillage was punished with death; rations only were demanded from the inhabitants.

[Sidenote: Henry compelled to retire upon Calais.]

Henry had intended to cross the Somme at Blanchetaque, where Edward III. had passed it. False information was brought him that the ford was guarded. In reality, the feudal army was as yet only collecting near Abbeville, around the standard of the Constable d’Albret, a man but little fitted for his post. Had Henry passed at once he might have reached Calais without a great battle; as it was, he was compelled to follow the river upwards, and time was afforded to the French to collect their forces, and seek their own destruction in a pitched battle. Henry sought a ford across the river for a long time in vain. He passed Amiens, and had got within a league of Ham, in a very dangerous position among the strong fortresses of Ham, St. Quentin and Péronne, when at length a ford was discovered near Béthancourt. The Constable, who was at Péronne, might have destroyed him in the passage. He let him pass unmolested. Following feudal fashion, he sent to ask Henry to name a day and place for the battle; but whatever external chivalry may have been visible in Henry, his military character was that of a hard, practical, modern soldier. He answered that there was no need to name day or place, as he was always to be found in the open fields. For four days the armies followed almost parallel lines of march, the French making no use of their superiority in numbers to disturb the quiet advance of the English, although they spread nightly among the villages for shelter. At length the Constable, with singular want of prudence, took up his position a little to the north of Hesdin and Cressy, on a small confined plain, where his large army, of at least 50,000 fighting men, was jammed in between two woods. This force consisted almost entirely of nobles and their feudal followers, who in their foolish pride of class had rejected the assistance of the infantry of the towns. The ground was arable land, and the soil deep and heavy, so that the heavy armed French in their splendid harness sank deep at every step, while the English, clad mostly in leather jerkins, and many of them barefoot, moved with comparative ease. The night, we are told, was passed in riot by the French; in sober preparation or religious exercise by the English.

_October 25. 1415._

1. English Archers.
2. English men at arms.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Agincourt. Oct. 25, 1415.]

The French drew themselves up in three massive lines or battles; the two first dismounted and fought on foot, for which their heavy armour but little fitted them; the third line retained their horses, as did two small wings intended to crush the archers. The state of the soil obliged them to adopt a defensive method of fighting quite contrary to their habits. The English advanced upon them--the archers in front, the heavy-armed infantry behind, the mixed archers and infantry on the flanks. They are described as having a miserable, ragged appearance after their weary march, as contrasted with the splendour of the French. Henry rode among them, cheering them with the memories of bygone victories. He had previously ordered every archer to supply himself with a stake sharpened at each end, which he was to plant before him, and thus make a moveable palisade. At eleven o’clock, after a brief and useless parley between the armies, Sir Thomas Erpingham, the English Marshal of the Host, tossed up his baton with the cry “Now strike,” and the battle began. The English advanced a few steps, expecting a charge from the enemy, but the hostile ranks remained immoveable; they were, in fact, planted knee-deep in the mud, and afforded a fine aim for the English archers, who did not spare them. At length, putting their heads down to avoid as much as possible the fatal arrows, the first line came heavily on, and the mounted wings began to close round the English; but the stakes of the archers served them in good stead. Of the horses, a large proportion tripped and fell in the rough ploughed land; not one in ten of their riders, we are told, came hand to hand with the archers. Unsupported and almost immoveable, the infantry broke. The archers seeing their plight, issued from between their stakes, threw down bow and arrow, seized their axes and maces, and fell headlong upon them. “It seemed,” says the chronicler, “as though they were hammering upon anvils.” The men-at-arms fell beneath the furious charge, and were smothered by their own companions as they fell over them. The same fate awaited the second line. The English men-at-arms had come up to support the archers, and the battle was fiercer, and for a time more equal. Certain of the French knights, under the Duke of Alençon, swore to take the life of Henry, and did their best to keep their oath. One of them cleft in two the golden crown on the helmet worn by Henry, and Alençon killed his cousin, the Duke of York, at his side. It was in vain; the English steadily advanced; the defeat of the first line, the rush of the fugitives, disordered and confused the cavalry, and they turned and fled. The English were already masters of the field, when news was brought that a fresh enemy was in their rear, and flames were seen arising from the village of Maisoncelle behind them. Henry, afraid of this new attack, and of a rally of the fugitives, gave the terrible order that all the prisoners should be killed. When his troops hesitated, he told off 200 archers to do the work; and already very many had been killed in cold blood, when the discovery that the alarm was a false one induced Henry to revoke his order. Of the 10,000 Frenchmen who died 8000 were of noble blood; among them were the Dukes of Alençon, Brabant, and Bar, the Constable d’Albret, and all the chief officers of the army. The Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon, the Counts of Vendôme and Richemont, and Marshal Boucicaut, with 15,000 knights, remained prisoners. Besides the Duke of York and the Earl of Oxford, the English had lost 1600 men. The King, with his triumphant army, at once proceeded to Calais, and thence to England. He attributed his wonderful success to Heaven, whose instrument he was in punishing the crimes in France. “Never,” said he to the Duke of Orleans, “was greater disorganization or licentiousness, or greater sins, or worse vices than reign in France now. It is pitiful even to hear the story of them, and a horror for the listeners. No wonder if God is enraged at it.”

[Sidenote: The French Government falls into the hands of the Armagnacs.]

The destruction of princes and feudal nobles at Agincourt seems to have annihilated the Armagnac party. The hatred of the Dauphin for the Duke of Burgundy prevented the unity which such an event might have produced. He summoned Bernard of Armagnac from the south of France, where he then was, and gave himself completely into his hands, making him Constable, Governor-General of the finances, and Captain of all the fortresses of France.

The party of the Constable, which had once been that of most of the princes of the royal blood, consisted now of adventurers, pledged to continue a civil war, to which they owed their importance. The real governors of France and Paris were the Gascon noble D’Armagnac and the Breton Tannegui Duchâtel. Their tyranny was of the bitterest description; their hired men-at-arms did all the harm an undisciplined soldiery can do; the people were taxed, in the midst of bitter famine, to the last farthing; their bloody tyranny induced them to forbid bathing in the Seine, lest the bathers should find there the corpses of their victims. The sole virtue of the party was that they continued the war with England, while Burgundy renewed his treaty with that nation. The Constable’s efforts were not successful. An attempt to regain Harfleur was defeated by the Duke of Bedford. But Henry for the present was content to stand on the defensive. The Parliament, in its enthusiasm at his great success, had granted him large subsidies, and the tax on wool for life; and he was spending his time in recruiting the strength of his army, and in giving a magnificent reception to Sigismund, King of the Romans.

[Sidenote: Visit of Sigismund. His position in Europe. 1416.]

[Sidenote: His close union with Henry.]

That Prince had succeeded in re-establishing the obsolete supremacy of the head of the Roman Empire. This he had done by the activity and success with which he collected a general council of the Church at Constance. His object at the council was to heal the great schism, which since 1378 had divided the Church. On the death of Gregory XI., who had brought back the Papacy to Rome, after its seventy years’ servitude to the French at Avignon, a double election took place, and the world was divided between Urbanists, who owned Urban VI., the Roman Pontiff, and the Clementines, who acknowledged Clement VII. of Avignon. Each Pope had his successors, and an attempted compromise at Pisa in 1409 had produced a third Pope. The three claimants to the honour were now Gregory XII. at Rome, Benedict XIII. at Avignon, John XXIII. at Pisa. The new council declared itself superior to all Popes, and proceeded to secure the dismissal or resignation of these three prelates. It also undertook to suppress the Wicliffite heresy, which had spread to Bohemia. Its efforts in this direction led to the condemnation and burning of John Huss and Jerome of Prague. The negotiations with Pope Benedict, who was acknowledged in Spain, were intrusted to Sigismund, who thus not unreasonably thought himself the arbiter of Europe, and determined to add to his ecclesiastical successes the healing of the war between France and England. For this purpose he passed through Paris, but met with indifferent success, and then betook himself to England. With Henry, as suppresser of heresy and champion of the Church, he had much in common, and he soon laid aside his position of arbiter to become an English partisan.[89] One incident of his visit is interesting, as marking both his position and the determined independence of the English. While in Paris he was present at a trial, and one party to the dispute seemed on the point of losing his case because he was not of knightly rank. Sigismund immediately knighted him. This interference was not pleasant to the French, and gave rise to the idea that the Emperor was claiming universal supremacy. On his approach to England, therefore, one of the King’s brothers and some other lords rode out into the water by the side of the ship, and there made him solemnly assert that he came as a friend, and claimed no jurisdiction in England.

[Sidenote: Failure of Sigismund’s mediation.]

[Sidenote: Armagnac attacks Queen Isabella. 1417.]

[Sidenote: She allies herself with Burgundy.]

[Sidenote: Henry’s second invasion.]

Sigismund’s efforts at procuring peace had been thwarted in Paris by the determination of D’Armagnac, whose position had become apparently more assured than ever. One after the other, Charles VI.’s two elder sons died, and his third son, Charles, who had been brought up by the Armagnac party, was now Dauphin. Besides the Constable, there was no one but his mother who had influence over him. That influence Bernard was determined to destroy. The avaricious character and licentiousness of the Queen afforded easy opportunity. He drove her into privacy at Tours, and seized her money. Henceforward she hated the Dauphin heartily, and was ready to do anything to injure him. Thus, when Burgundy approached Paris with an army, he was suddenly summoned to rescue the Queen from her captivity, and France became still more distinctly divided into the party of the Dauphin and the party of the Queen. Still further to complete the separation, and to give a shadow of legitimacy to their action, the Queen and Burgundy established a counter-Parliament at Amiens, and a rival Great Council of France. The civil war went on increasing in atrocity, and D’Armagnac was too hard pressed to interfere with Henry, who, on August 14th, landed at Honfleur for his second invasion, and proceeded to master Normandy. With Flanders, Artois and Picardy on the one hand rendered neutral by the friendship of Burgundy, and Brittany on the other under a truce with him, he could act at his ease. Caen, Bayeux, L’Aigle, were captured one after the other, and the next year, with four divisions spreading from Artois to Brittany, he pushed southward, conquering all the strong towns as he went. He was not a merciful conqueror. He exacted to the full the rights of war. Most of the towns were treated as Harfleur had been, but in nearly every case a certain number of the citizens were beheaded under the title of rebels.

[Sidenote: The Parisians, anxious for peace, admit the Burgundians.]