Overview
Henry V is the best-known military hero in English history: better known than Marlborough or Wellington, or his grandfather, Edward III. He enjoyed more success against the French than any of them, coming tantalisingly close to conquering that vast country and imposing an English dynasty; this in a reign of just nine years, in only seven of which he was at war. Even before he died the heroic myth, later enshrined by Shakespeare, was being created. His victories have become the touchstone of English nationalism, English militarism and English imperialism. For good or ill, Henry V now signifies the one-time 'Greatness of England'. He was a military genius, yet his megalomania was not always in the best interests of his own kingdom, let alone the people of France who suffered at his hands. Behind the carefully constructed nationalist myth was a cold, calculating, ruthless ruler who, before his early death, revealed ominous tyrannical tendencies.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780750955249 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 02/03/2014 |
| Series: | Pocket GIANTS |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 128 |
| File size: | 270 KB |
About the Author
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Henry V: Pocket Giants
By A.J. Pollard
The History Press
Copyright © 2014 A.J. PollardAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7509-5524-9
CHAPTER 1
'So blest a son': Childhood and Youth, 1386–1406
Henry V was born at Monmouth on 16 September 1386. He was not expected to become king. But he was in direct line of succession to the throne, as great-grandson of King Edward III, grandson of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and eldest son of Henry of Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby. The house of Lancaster was the most powerful in England under the throne and 'Time-honoured' Gaunt was the mightiest of magnates, a European prince and by far the king's richest subject, with hundreds of lords and knights retained in his service throughout the realm. Bolingbroke, Henry's father, was a great noble in his own right and a young man of chivalric renown. He became embroiled in the factional politics of King Richard II's court during Gaunt's absence overseas in the years 1386–89. He then set out himself on foreign ventures, first on crusade to Prussia and then on pilgrimage to the Holy Land between 1390 and 1393.
The boy Henry saw little of his father, but this was not unusual: until the age of 7 noble children were usually cared for in their mother's household. When he later became king, he remembered his nurse, Joan Waryn, to whom he granted an annuity of £20. His mother, Mary Bohun, the joint heiress to the Earldom of Hereford, died in June 1394. What impact her death had on the 7-year-old we do not know, although he commissioned an image for her tomb in the church of St Mary de Castro in Leicester on his accession to the throne. Throughout his life he remained close to his maternal grandmother, Joan, the dowager countess who almost certainly influenced his religious development.
He may already have moved, when he was 7, to the household of his grandfather for the customary next stage of his upbringing. Here, as well as military training (he attended his first tournament when he was 10) and schooling in the arts of hunting and falconry, he received a liberal education. His tutor was his young uncle Henry Beaufort, later the Cardinal Bishop of Winchester, one of Gaunt's sons by Katherine Swynford. Young Henry was supplied with grammar books and learnt to play the harp. When he was still only 12 he joined the household of King Richard himself – at which point his childhood was dramatically and prematurely brought to an end.
In normal times, entering the royal household would have been unexceptional. But times were far from normal. In 1398 Henry's father, Bolingbroke, had clashed with the king and had been exiled for ten years. Gaunt had secured an undertaking that, should he die, his heir, now Duke of Hereford, would be able to enter his vast Lancastrian inheritance. After Gaunt's death in 1399, the king broke his promise and took the estates into his own hands. Bolingbroke, in Paris, made immediate plans to return to England to recover his right. Richard II, who must surely have anticipated such a reaction, nevertheless pressed on with an expedition to Ireland. With him he took young Henry of Monmouth, to whom he had granted an annuity of £500. Later it was said that a personal bond developed between man and boy, Richard taking the emotional place left vacant by an absent and distant father.
Richard II left the kingdom in charge of his uncle, the Duke of York. He was still in Ireland when Bolingbroke landed at Ravenspur on the coast of Yorkshire. Bolingbroke claimed that he had returned only to recover his rightful inheritance and reform the misgovernnment of the realm. In this he received considerable support, not only from his own and his late father's numerous Lancastrian followers, but also from neutrals such as the powerful Earl of Northumberland. When, a week or two later, Richard II hurriedly returned to North Wales, Henry was already, in effect, in command of the kingdom. The Duke of York had defected; Bristol had fallen; and Chester, the heartland of Ricardian loyalty, had been secured against the king. The Earl of Northumberland was sent to meet the outnumbered monarch at Conwy and Richard was taken into custody.
Bolingbroke and his advisers judged that it was better to hazard usurpation than face the certainty of eventual failure if he forced his rule on a vengeful king. Thus, on 30 September 1399, Richard II 'abdicated' and a new king, calling himself Henry IV, assumed the throne. Despite repeated assurances that Bolingbroke only wished to see reform of the government and that the imprisoned former king would come to no harm, he was dead shortly afterwards.
Henry of Monmouth, who had been left in safekeeping by Richard II in Ireland, returned to England and was reunited with his father, a comparative stranger, in time for the coronation which took place on 13 October. At the ceremony he carried the sword of justice. Two days later he was created Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Earl of Chester and Duke of Aquitaine – and shortly afterwards granted the additional title of Duke of Lancaster. Over the next year an independent household was established for him, financed by the revenues from Wales, Cornwall and Chester (Henry held only the titles of the other two duchies). By the time of his fourteenth birthday in September 1400 he was treated as a young adult. But of course he was under his father's tutelage.
Henry's military education and training were completed in the field. He had already, in 1399, campaigned under Richard II's wing in Ireland. Now he joined his father with a retinue of over a hundred men under his nominal command on an abortive invasion of Scotland in the summer of 1400. That autumn, a revolt by a leading Welsh landowner, Owain Glyn Dwr, drew the king, with his son still in his company, into a punitive raid into North Wales. He then installed the English prince in Chester, supported by a council under the leadership of Henry 'Hotspur' Percy, the heir to the Earl of Northumberland. In the spring of 1401, the Welsh rebellion burst into life again. Hotspur, with the prince in his company, secured the important castle town of Conwy, but was unable to prevent the rising against English rule from spreading.
In the autumn of 1402, from his northern mountain sanctuary, Owain was co-ordinating raids throughout the whole of Wales, having declared himself to be the true prince of that land. King Henry IV responded by mounting a three-pronged invasion, with Prince Harry nominally leading an army from Chester. This achieved little other than the relief and revictualling of the North Welsh castles. To add to royal woes, friction developed within the English camp. Hotspur, whose brother-in-law Sir Edmund Mortimer had been captured by the Welsh, was in favour of negotiation and compromise; Henry IV was adamantly against. After a blazing row, Hotspur resigned (or was removed from) his post. On 7 March 1403, the prince was formally sworn in as his father's lieutenant in Wales. He was now in full independent command. His first action was to raid and sack Glyn Dwr's home at Sycharth. Still only 16, the precocious youth was already a veteran of six campaigns. His grandfather Gaunt had not gone on his first campaign until he was that age; his father not until he was 18.
Henry was shortly to be blooded in a horrific way, in the most ferocious battle fought for decades on English soil. He had been in the saddle frequently since 1399, and had learnt first hand about the rigours of forced marches, the routine revictualling of remote strongholds, the cruelty of plundering raids and the taking of reprisals. But he had yet to fight in a set-piece battle. Now he was pitched into bloody combat against Hotspur, the flower of chivalry. Knowing that Henry IV was marching north on a second Scottish campaign, Percy had hoped to surprise the adolescent prince, link up with Glyn Dwr and turn on the king. But Henry IV had rapidly diverted and marched back to join his son outside Shrewsbury – just in time to confront Hotspur.
The 16-year-old led the advance against the fearsome Cheshire archers whom Hotspur had recruited to his cause. As he marched forward, Prince Henry was struck by an arrow in his cheek. He broke off the shaft and pressed on without hesitation to engage in the hand-to-hand melee that was a medieval battle. In the end he and his father won the day. The arrow that hit Hotspur killed him; that which hit the prince entered 6 inches into the back of his lower skull – but he survived. The arrow had to be removed by an agonising operation which involved the surgeon devising a special tool to insert and clamp on the head embedded in the bone. Thereafter Henry carried a scar close to his nose. It is not clear how disfigured he was, as it was never referred to publicly, but the scar may explain why, uniquely among English monarchs, his official portrait was made in profile (see appendix). After Shrewsbury no one ever doubted his courage and few dared cross the man carrying this mark of honour. His military apprenticeship was complete. War and all that it entailed was etched on his face.
It took Henry well over nine months to recover from his wound; he did not return to active duty until the summer of 1404. By then the whole of Wales was under rebel control and English strategy was restricted to containment. The prince and his household now spent most of their time across the border in Herefordshire. His lieutenants garrisoned the Marcher castles and began slowly to wrest back the initiative. In the early summer of 1405 he was given a renewed command in North Wales as his father's lieutenant, a commission that was regularly extended. But he was beginning to spend time away from the Marches, delegating conduct of the war to deputies. He did not entirely abandon his command; indeed, he had a pressing personal need to recover the principality since it was a major source of his income. But he preferred to lead from a distance, giving priority to ensuring that he received the support he needed – political and financial – from a government hard-pressed from many quarters.
At the beginning of 1406 it was announced that the prince would once again take personal command in Wales and spearhead its reconquest. Parliament was summoned in March to raise funds for the campaign. But in April the king collapsed. He had suffered either a stroke or heart attack. The reconvening of parliament after the Easter recess had to be postponed. Unable to ride, Henry came down from Windsor by boat, but it was immediately apparent that he was seriously incapacitated and not fit enough to govern the kingdom. Thus a continual council was established, its members nominated by parliament, with the king's declared assent to rule in his name. This council was now responsible for bringing royal finances under control. The Commons pressed for firm action.
Prince Henry's reaction to his father's illness, and the possibility of his death, is hard to fathom. In 1404 he had been praised in parliament for his courage and good service in Wales. Now the Commons complained of his continued failure to return to his command. It seems he wanted to be on hand in Westminster since the succession had suddenly become a matter of pressing concern. An act passed in June had confirmed the 19-year-old Prince of Wales as rightful heir to the throne, but its preamble had shown a degree of distrust in him. It openly referred to his 'errors', even as it stressed his good intentions and willingness to be ruled by the council. What lay behind these cryptic remarks, entered formally into the parliamentary record, we do not know. Had the prince perhaps tried to assert his own authority over the royal council?
His Welsh command had been renewed in September, but still Henry did not return to the Marches. Throughout the autumn he seems to have continued to linger in London, where he agitated behind the scenes for a bigger say in government. (There was deadlock between crown and parliament over the terms of reference for the continual council.) Finally, on 8 December 1406, Prince Henry was brought into government to attend his first meeting of the council. His promotion seems to have helped break the deadlock. More sweeping powers to act in the king's name were granted than had been conceded in June. And the Act of Succession, which had offended the prince, was repealed.
Government of the realm was now in the hands of a continual council ruling in the king's name on terms acceptable to the heir to the throne and others who had previously been vocal in parliamentary opposition. A new chancellor, Archbishop Arundel of Canterbury, presided. Parliament was dissolved just before Christmas. For the remaining six years of his father's life, in the context of Henry IV's continuing ill health and fitful capacity to rule, the Prince of Wales was to be a highly visible and active politician.
CHAPTER 2'Riot and dishonour stain the brow': Prince Hal in Politics, 1406–13
For the last six years of Henry IV's reign, Prince Henry was the dynamic force in English politics – and an increasingly disruptive one. As the seasons passed, he became more and more frustrated with the restriction of being second in the realm. Like many later Princes of Wales, he became the focus of a faction, which by the end of the reign was in opposition to the king. He made no secret of his belief that he could rule the kingdom better than his enfeebled father. His behaviour in the last years of Henry IV's life made many wonder whether such a headstrong, arrogant and disobedient son was fit to wear the crown.
It all began well enough when the prince joined the continual council. He was an assiduous attender, being present at two-thirds of the recorded meetings in 1407 and even more frequently over the following two years. Tackling the deficit was the major preoccupation of this administration, and, with the king accepting the constraints imposed upon him, the council gradually began to bring the budget under control. The young heir's increasing status is perhaps to be seen in the issuing of a new great seal in which the arms of Prince Henry as Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Chester are depicted as supporting those of the king. His influence may also be discerned in the confirmation of the legitimacy of the Beauforts – his half-brothers, John, Earl of Somerset, Henry, Bishop of Winchester, and Sir Thomas – all of whom became close allies.
Having insisted on the necessary financial support, even from a restricted budget, he now did as required. In July he led a well-equipped army to Wales. The objective was to capture Aberystwyth, one of the last remaining strongholds in rebel hands. All went well at first. Terms were agreed for town and castle to surrender on 1 November if Glyn Dwr failed to relieve them. Confident in the outcome, Henry attended the next parliament which met on 25 October at Gloucester – close to the Marches for his convenience. The Commons were in truculent mood, for they had been assured that no taxation would be needed for two years and members were dissatisfied by the progress made in retrenchment. Nevertheless, before they were dissolved on 2 December, they voted another half subsidy and released the council from its oath to abide by the articles agreed the previous year.
While the prince and some of his senior commanders were thus engaged, however, Glyn Dwr relieved Aberystwyth. Perhaps because of this failure, and criticism of his conduct of the siege, the prince came before his father to declare, on his knees, his loyalty to him. He also vouched for the faithful service of his cousin, Edward, Duke of York, who had been with his army in Wales. (York, who had succeeded his father in 1400, had been suspected of treason in 1404.) What further suspicion of the prince's behaviour lay behind this unusual submission it is clear that the prince was not trusted by some close to the king, and, it would appear, not even by the king himself. Father and son clashed, as fathers and sons often do. Perhaps the young Henry made no secret of his belief that he could do the job better than his father.
For the following two years the prince was a model subject and dutiful son. In the summer of 1408, he raised another fully financed army, complete with artillery train, and returned once more to Aberystwyth. This time he was successful. His army next moved on to a winter siege of Harlech, while he himself returned to England. His father had become gravely ill. In January 1409 he made his will, and Prince Henry and his younger brother Thomas, who had returned in haste from his command in Ireland, spent several anxious days at his bedside.
To everyone's surprise, the king recovered. But all was far from well. Splits had begun to deepen in the administration. The financial strains were beginning to tell. The supremely self-confident Prince of Wales had absolutely no doubt as to who was best equipped to govern the kingdom in the name of his enfeebled father. He did not feel that reform was being pursued vigorously enough, even though he himself had enjoyed preference from the exchequer for his recent military campaigns. He was also unhappy with the continuing residence of his brother Thomas in England. In May, Thomas was granted £7,000 to cover his arrears as lieutenant in Ireland, whereas Henry received only small allocations for Wales. Prince Henry made it known, with some hypocrisy considering his own earlier dilatoriness, that his brother should leave court and return to his post across the water. He did not. In August Henry attempted to have him removed from office. It was by now apparent that Thomas was their father's favoured son and that there was deep ill feeling between the siblings. Henry may well have believed that Thomas was turning the king and the chancellor against him.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Henry V: Pocket Giants by A.J. Pollard. Copyright © 2014 A.J. Pollard. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title page,Dedication,
Acknowledgements,
Introduction 'His deeds exceed all speech',
1 'So blest a son': Childhood and Youth, 1386–1406,
2 'Riot and dishonour stain the brow': Prince Hal in Politics, 1406–13,
3 'Presume not that I am the thing I was': The New King, 1413–14,
4 'Now thrive the armourers': Preparation for War, 1414–15,
5 'The game's afoot': Harfleur and Agincourt, 1415,
6 'Once more into the breach': The Conquest of Normandy, 1416–19,
7 'The vasty fields of France': War and Peace, 1419–22,
8 'Gentlemen in England now abed': The Home Front, 1417–22,
9 'We in it shall be remembered': Apotheosis and Reputation,
10 'This star of England': Assessment,
Appendix Henry V's Portrait,
Map,
Family Tree,
Notes,
Further Reading,
Glossary,
Timeline,
Copyright,