Henry V as Warlord Read online

  Oldcastle went underground at safe-houses in London to organize a Lollard rising. Posters stuck on church doors claimed that ‘100,000 men’ were ready to fight for the new opinions. In almost every English county his agents summoned the people to rise, as the artisans and labourers had done in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. The Lollard programme attracted considerable support, as much because of economic misery as from religious feeling. Sir John was to be regent, while the king, nobility and clergy were to be placed under restraint, and the abbeys dissolved and their riches shared out. Many Lollards anticipated the Taborites of Bohemia in dreaming of a new Jerusalem. Oldcastle and his friends – Sir Roger Acton, Sir Thomas Talbot, Sir Thomas Cheyne – were more than mere anti-clericals who wished to purify the Church.11

  Sir John modelled his coup d’état on that of Richard II’s would-be restorers in 1400. He planned to smuggle armed Lollards disguised as mummers into Eltham Palace where Henry was keeping Christmas and seize him and his brothers on Twelfth Night (6 January) 1414. Some sources say he meant to kill them. The second stage would be the arrival of a Lollard army in London; men from all over England were to assemble at Fickett’s Field, just outside Temple Bar in St Giles Fields, on Wednesday 10 January. However, one Thomas Burton (later rewarded with 100 shillings as a ‘king’s spy’) kept Henry fully informed throughout. At 10 o’clock on the evening of Twelfth Night the mayor and his men-at-arms raided a carpenter’s shop at the Sign of the Axe near Bishopsgate. They found the carpenter and seven other Lollards dressed as mummers, among them a squire of Oldcastle’s, about to set off for Eltham. Despite the failure of the plot’s first stage Sir John did not call off the assembly at Fickett’s Field of – in the words of the Gesta – ‘this same raven of treachery with those of his crows who, as arranged, were to flock to him from almost every part of England’.12 The King was waiting for them with his troops. As they arrived in the grey hours before dawn they were arrested. For all the boasts of ‘100,000 men’ only 300 came to the field, of whom eighty were captured – the rest, including Oldcastle, fled into the gloom. Three days later, on 13 January, seven of the prisoners who were proven Lollards suffered the ‘burning death’ – fires lit beneath them as they hung in chains from gibbets. During the next fortnight another twenty-five were hanged in batches; four new pairs of gallows, popularly named ‘The Lollers’ Gallows’, were erected in St Giles Fields for the purpose. Henry felt more secure by the end of January and the remaining prisoners were eventually freed on payment of heavy fines. Sir Roger Acton, Oldcastle’s principal lieutenant, was among those executed, who ‘for the space of a month was swinging on the gibbet’ records Adam of Usk. However, the chief organizer of this pitiful little conspiracy was not caught until 1417. Writing at the end of 1416 the author of the Gesta says that Sir John ‘lurked in holes and corners out of the sight of men, and indeed still does, like another Cain, a vagabond and a fugitive on the face of the earth’.13

  Strangely enough Oldcastle had been smuggled out of London by the Archdeacon of Westminster and was later sheltered by the Abbot of Shrewsbury and the Prior of Wenlock – all three Benedictine monks. The monastic community at Westminster had long been known for stubborn fidelity to King Richard and it seems hostility to the Lancastrian usurpers was still so strong that orthodox Catholics were ready to ally with heretics against the regime. It is also known that when he was on the run Sir John was in contact with Glyn Dŵr’s son, Maredudd, who had not yet submitted to Henry V and continued to roam the Welsh hills.

  During the Parliament which met at Leicester in April 1414 a savage statute was enacted against Lollards. Every secular official, including mayors, was required to take an oath to root out heresy in his district, being empowered to arrest, question and imprison suspects. Even if those accused were acquitted, they were to be kept under observation for years afterwards. There were more burnings, such as that of the London furrier John Claydon in 1415. The Lollards were broken and driven underground.

  As Jeremy Catto has written, ‘from the Leicester Parliament of 1414 until the triumph of toleration in the eighteenth century, religion was established and enforced by public authority, and dissentient voices were subjected to the rigour of statutory felony. By contrast, before 1400 religion was outside the competence of the secular power.’14 In clerical matters the king was in many respects the precursor of Henry VIII, and began to institutionalize the concept of a national church. In part his attitude stemmed from formalist piety, in part from dislike of any challenge to his authority. Over a century before the title was actually used Henry V would act as though he were ‘supreme governor of the church of England’.15

  The new king proved no less effective in secular matters. One of his most impressive achievements was his swift restoration of law and order. Throughout his father’s reign, despite the promises of ‘good governance’ of 1399, England had been convulsed by banditry and rioting, cowed by bribery and intimidation. Henry V’s policy was a characteristic blend of neatly gauged conciliation and merciless punishment. His campaign against disorder began at the Leicester Parliament; in the words of Chancellor Beaufort it was ‘for the chastisement and punishment of the rioters, murderers and malefactors who more than ever abound in many parts of the kingdom’. This was followed by a frenzy of judicial activity. Since murder and robbery had been particularly prevalent in the north west Midlands, the Court of King’s Bench sat at Lichfield and Shrewsbury for over a month, issuing 1600 summons. There were commissions of inquiry in Derbyshire, Devon, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, and in North and South Wales. These were regions where treasons, felonies and trespasses had been especially widespread. By the autumn of 1414, King’s Bench had a huge backlog of cases. The king, who watched the court closely and sometimes intervened, cleared the backlog by declaring a general pardon extending even to murderers and rapists – charters of pardon were purchased by nearly 5,000 persons. Fines were used in other cases in preference to prison sentences, with the hint that military service was a sure way of regaining royal favour. Henry read personally all petitions addressed to him, a practice which he continued when campaigning abroad. His success is shown by the fact that disorder did not return during his reign, not even in the long periods when he was away in France.16

  His priority was plainly law and order, not the punishment of crime. This has to be seen in the context of his preparations for war and need to recruit an army. Under strict discipline criminals can make excellent fighting men, as their aggressive instincts are directed at enemies abroad and away from the population at home. It has been estimated that as many as twelve per cent of Edward III’s troops were outlaws serving in hope of a pardon and although no similar analysis exists for his great-grandson’s soldiers the percentage was no doubt very similar.

  Henry was only able to achieve as much as he did during the fifteen months before his invasion fleet sailed for France because he had an unusually gifted team of administrators, men with whom he had worked in 1409–12. These included all the key members of his council; Bishop Beaufort (Chancellor), the Earl of Arundel (Treasurer) and John Prophet (Privy Seal), together with Langley, Bishop of Durham, and Chichele, Bishop of St David’s, who have been described, not inaptly, as ministers without portfolio.17 They attended the rather larger meetings of the Royal Household which was soon widened to admit the Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester, the Earl of March, Lord Fitzhugh, Sir Thomas Erpingham, and Richard Courtenay, Bishop of Norwich. Council and Household both met regularly for discussions whose minutes sometimes read like those of any modern board meeting. On Sunday 27 May 1415, for example, the Council met to nominate individuals for specific duties and specialized committees: Chichele, Lord Scrope, Sir John Mortimer and two clerical diplomats were to brief envoys to the Duke of Burgundy; Bedford and Bishop Beaufort were to consider the redemption of pawned crown jewels; Bishop Beaufort was to pressure the bishops to take more steps against Lollards; other committees were nominated to deal with such matters as policy for the seneschal
of Guyenne, appointing commissions of array in every county, supplies for the invasion fleet and sailors’ pay. The council could be ruthless enough, especially where money was concerned; on the previous Friday it had summoned ten Italian merchants before it, ordering them to furnish a war loan of £2,000 – when this was refused the Italians were promptly sent under guard to the Fleet prison.

  The king tried to enlist the sympathy of all Europe by stressing his moderation. He declared that he was ready to forego his own claim to the throne of France if the French would give him Aquitaine as it had been in 1360, after the Treaty of Brétigny. His envoys travelled everywhere, putting their master’s case and complaining of French injustice towards him. Meanwhile, inexorably, he made his preparations for war. He was too busy to be on his guard against danger at home.

  In some quarters the new dynasty was still resented. As late as the summer of 1415, when Henry was on the point of launching his invasion of France, another extremely serious anti-Lancastrian plot very nearly succeeded. On 1 August the Earl of March came suddenly to Porchester Castle from where the king was directing the embarkation. He demanded an audience and revealed that his brother-in-law, the Earl of Cambridge, had tried to enlist him in a plot to overthrow Henry. He was to be denounced in a proclamation as ‘Henry of Lancaster, usurper of England’. As Cambridge later explained in a confession, ‘I purposed to have had the aforesaid earl [of March] into the land of Wales without your consent, to confer upon the earl the sovereignty of this land if that man whom they call King Richard had not been alive, as I know very well he is not.’ (This was in reference to the pseudo-Richard in Scotland.)18 Henry Percy, Hotspur’s son, not yet restored to his grandfather’s earldom, was to cross the border into England with a Scots army and raise the North, while a Davy Howell was to hand over the royal castles in Wales, where Owain’s old followers were waiting to rise. Howell, a distinguished commander, seems to have known nothing of the plot. In addition Sir John Oldcastle and his Lollards would raise the Welsh border and the West Country. It was the old alliance of Percy, Mortimer and Glyn Dŵr.

  There had been long discussions between March, Lord Clifford – who refused to be drawn into the conspiracy – and the two other ring-leaders, Sir Thomas Grey and Lord Scrope at the Itchen ferry, under the very walls of Southampton, and also at supper parties at March’s manor of Cranbury near Winchester. A plan to fire the invasion fleet was rejected. Finally it had been decided to assassinate King Henry on the very day that March had his audience.

  Henry struck at once. Cambridge, Scrope and Grey were arrested without delay and a jury was impanelled the same day. The following day they were found guilty and a commission presided over by Clarence sentenced them to death. Grey was executed at once but, as was their right as lords, Cambridge and Scrope demanded to be tried by their peers. Many of these were at Southampton waiting to go over to France and twenty soon met, under Clarence’s presidency, confirming the sentences. Henry commuted these to beheading, the privilege of lords, though he had Scrope dragged ignominiously on a hurdle through the streets of Southampton – no doubt to be pelted with filth and stones – to the place of execution outside the north gate, where ‘their heads were smit off’.

  The plot has not been taken seriously enough by historians (even if Wylie calls it a ‘really formidable shock’), because it failed. Yet the conspirators included a member of the royal family, a magnate who was a former Treasurer of the Household, and a redoubtable and extremely influential soldier. Cambridge and Scrope were genuine powers in the land, both Knights of the Garter, with many friends, allies and clients. Walsingham says that the tender-hearted king wept at their fate. He is more likely to have shed tears because of their denial of his right to the throne.

  Richard of Coninsburgh, Earl of Cambridge, was the younger brother of that arch-intriguer, the Duke of York, who was, however, not implicated in the plot. As well as being March’s brother-in-law, Cambridge had been Richard II’s godson. No doubt Henry thought he had secured his loyalty by creating him an earl. His daughter was married to the eldest son of Sir Thomas Grey of Heton Castle (and of the Towers of Wark-on-Tyne and Nesbit) in Northumberland, constable of Bamborough and Norham Castles in the same county – both key strongholds. Grey was also a son-in-law of the Earl of Westmorland while his wife’s brother-in-law was the Earl of Northumberland. He was therefore very well connected and very much respected throughout the North Country. The Gesta admits that he was ‘a knight famous and noble if only he had not been dishonoured by this stain of treason’.19

  It was the defection of Scrope which shook Henry, the enmity of someone so brilliant, who had been one of his closest friends. Presumably he would have endorsed Friar Capgrave’s verdict; ‘Sober was the man in word and cheer and under that hypocrisy had he a full venomous heart.’ Indeed the attempted coup has earned Lord Scrope the contempt of history. Shakespeare makes Henry rebuke him with an extremely plausible speech:

  Ingrateful, savage and inhuman creature!

  Thou, that didst bear the key of all my counsels,

  That knewst the very bottom of my soul

  Yet Scrope’s real motives have never been identified. The contemporary rumour that he had been bought by the French for ‘a million of gold’ was without foundation. He himself said that the conspirators had invited him to join them because he was the nephew of the murdered archbishop, which seems the most likely explanation; his piety verged on mysticism, and he cannot have been unmoved by the cult of ‘St Richard’ at York Minster. The person who knew Henry best, outside his family, was not prepared to have him as his king.

  The ‘Southampton Plot’ was inept and ill conceived. The devout Lord Scrope could never have brought himself to join forces with the Lollard heretics, whom he detested, and at one point he appears to have tried to talk his fellow plotters out of going ahead with it. Nonetheless Henry had only been saved at the last moment because March lost his nerve. If Cambridge’s confession is to be believed, the earl’s chaplain had urged him ‘to claim what he called his right’ and his household had been convinced that he meant to do so. March undoubtedly feared that the king intended to ‘undo’ him, and had recently been shattered by Henry forcing him to pay 10,000 marks (nearly £7,000) as a marriage fine to ensure he remained subservient and did not meddle in politics. During the final French attempt to avoid war the astrologer Jean Fusoris, who accompanied the embassy to England, heard that many people would have preferred March to be their king. But he possessed either too little ambition or too little self-confidence. He seems to have been an unusually amiable and kindly young man, moderately gifted, with a healthy sense of self-preservation. He was understandably reserved and somewhat suspicious, and above all very much in awe of the cousin who had stolen his crown. Investigating his personal accounts McFarlane discovered that he had a weakness for gambling – losing £157 between the autumn of 1413 and the spring of 1414 at cards, tables, raffles and dice, and betting on cockfighting. ‘There are also some suspiciously large payments to a certain Alice at Poplar and some other signs of a fondness for low as well as high company.’20

  Later March served Henry well enough during the campaigns in France, though he was to fall under suspicion at least once again. He died childless in 1425 when his claims passed to his sister, the Countess of Cambridge (the widow of the earl who had perished in the Southampton Plot). Her son Richard, Duke of York, was to claim the throne in 1460 – on being asked why he had not done so before, he replied, ‘Though right for a time rest and be put to silence, yet it rotteth not nor shall it perish.’

  Henry V believed that there was only one way to end ‘all this clamour of King Richard’, as his father put it. He had to prove to the world that God’s blessing was on the new dynasty. The sole method of doing so was trial by battle.

  V

  The English Armada

  ‘We exhort you in the bowels of Jesus Christ to execute and do that thing that the Evangelist teacheth, saying “Friend, pay that that th
ou owest and restore that that thou wrongfully detainest.” And to the end that the blood of innocence be not spilt, we require due restitution of our rightful inheritance by you wrongfully witholden from Us.’

  Henry V to the Dauphin, 1415

  ‘Nor with you can our sovereign lord safely treat.’

  The Archbishop of Bourges to Henry V, 1415

  Henry’s preparations for his grand design, the invasion and conquest of France, are further evidence of the many-sided genius he had displayed in Wales and in ruling England during his father’s illness. He solved with ease countless problems of logistics and organization. He also showed himself to be a skilled and ruthless diplomat.

  Almost from the moment he succeeded to the crown, he was making ready for war with France. As early as May 1413 he had ordered that no bows or guns were to be sold to the Scots or to other foreigners. Throughout 1413–14 he was buying bows, bow strings and arrows, while guns were being founded at the Tower and at Bristol, and gun powder and gunstones manufactured in large quantities. He also purchased, or had manufactured, siege towers, scaling ladders, battering rams and other tools for demolishing and breaching walls, and collapsible pontoon bridges. Timber, rope, mattocks, picks and shovels were stockpiled, together with every other conceivable necessity for siege warfare – from calthrops to iron chains, from sea-coal to wood-ash. In October 1414, 10,000 gunstones costing £66 13s 4d were delivered to the Tower.1