1415: Henry V's Year of Glory

by Mortimer, Ian

  With only one month to go, Henry’s impatience was understandable.

  Monday 8th

  Any English king planning to lead an expedition overseas had to recognise that the security of the borders was essential. Edward III had taken many precautions to protect the northern counties against the Scots when preparing to cross the seas. As Henry was clearly studying his great-grandfather’s preparations in 1346, and almost regarding them as a set of guidelines, so now he followed Edward’s example. He sent writs to the sheriffs of Cumberland, the North Riding of Yorkshire, and Westmorland and Northumberland, and to the bishop of Durham. These writs ordered them to proclaim in the king’s name that no knight, esquire or yeoman should leave his county, under pain of forfeiting his lands, but should remain in the north ready to resist the king’s enemies, the Scots, ‘as the king has information that his said enemies are minded shortly to invade the realm with no small power’.25

  Tuesday 9th

  It was the anniversary of Henry’s coronation in Westminster Abbey. He can hardly have failed to remember that day. He had been dressed in cloth-of-gold and red samite, and crowned. No expenses had been spared – as that day’s household expenditure of £971 testifies.26 Just as importantly for Henry, it was the occasion on which he had been anointed with holy oil, as God’s chosen ruler, and had become a semi-divine person.

  Writing a letter to the duke of Brittany he informed the duke that he was in good health and expressed wishes that the duke was well too. And he thanked him for the gift of a gold cup. This may have been brought back by Henry’s negotiator, John Chamberlain; but given that two months had passed since Chamberlain had been paid for his services, it is more likely that the cup had been presented more recently, perhaps by agents of the duke of Brittany in England.27 Having secured the duke’s agreement that he would not hinder him in his argument with the king of France, such diplomatic niceties mattered.

  Wednesday 10th

  In the early fifteenth century there were two forms of medical practitioner. There were physicians, who diagnosed medical conditions and prescribed medicines and treatments to cure the inner workings of the body; and there were surgeons, who dealt with matters relating to the skin and cutting into the body. The skill of the latter was somewhat more practical than the former because surgeons quickly gained considerable experience of ailments that had an obvious cause: a broken limb, for example, or an arrow sticking in the body. Physicians’ skills were by contrast largely recitations of rehearsed diagnostic rituals from ancient medical treatises and astrological calculations. Despite this, there were a number of unscrupulous surgeons in the city of London. Today a report reached Thomas Falconer, the mayor of London, and the aldermen that

  some barbers of the city, who are inexperienced in the art of surgery, do often take under their care many sick and maimed persons, fraudulently obtaining possession of very many of their goods thereby; by reason whereof they are often worse off at their departure than they were at their coming. Because of the inexperience of the same barbers such people are often maimed, to the scandal of such skilful and discreet men as practise the art of surgery, and the manifest destruction of the people of our lord the king.28

  In order to remedy this situation Thomas Falconer ordered that, as members of the Guild of Barbers supervised their own members, a list of all of them who were skilled in surgery should be drawn up, and two of their number should be elected to enquire into cases of malpractice. It is a timely reminder that there was no regulation of the medical trades in fifteenth-century England. There was no college of physicians, nor of surgeons. Six years after this there was a determined attempt to found a college of physicians, and although it met with Henry’s approval, it was doomed to failure due to the inability to train sufficient graduate practitioners to administer physic throughout the realm.29

  While Thomas Falconer listened to the problems of barbers practising surgery, a privy council meeting took place at which the dukes of Bedford and Gloucester, the archbishop of Canterbury, Chancellor Beaufort and the guardian of the privy seal were present. Their purpose was to discuss the case of a Flemish widow, Katherine Kaylewates, who had had various goods seized by men of Sandwich. This was contrary to the terms of Henry’s Statute of Truces, as there was a truce in force between Henry and John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy; and, in line with the statute, local officials had impounded the goods and arrested the malefactors. However, the culprits had been released by the keeper of the gaol at Sandwich without the king’s permission. Katherine now petitioned the council to take action, as she claimed she had lost goods to the value of £80. The councillors agreed, and issued instructions for the constable of Dover to recover the goods or, if they could not be recovered, to levy a fine of £80 on the men of Sandwich. They also ordered that the keeper of the gaol be arrested.

  Exactly what Katherine’s standing was, beyond her status as a Flemish widow, is not clear but, as a subject of the duke of Burgundy, her case was clearly an infringement of the Statute of Truces. With so much depending on the continued goodwill of John the Fearless, and every diplomatic issue being a potential threat to Henry’s plans, the council stamped hard on the people of Sandwich.

  In the meantime, further preparations were made for the defence of Calais. Adam Chancellor was commissioned to take ships and mariners, carts and labourers, as well as timber, stones, lime and other building materials for the defence of the town.30

  Thursday 11th

  Nicholas Maudit, a royal esquire and sergeant-at-arms who had served in the royal household for a number of years, received two grants today: one of 20 marks a year and another of £10 – on top of his wages of a shilling a day.31 Thus encouraged, he was ordered to set out with Robert Spellowe to arrest all the ships with a capacity of twenty tuns and upwards from ports between Bristol and Newcastle, and to bring them to Winchelsea, London or Sandwich by 8 May.32 In this way Henry hoped to gather all those vessels that had evaded the command of 19 March issued to Thomas Beaufort, admiral of England. Maudit and Spellowe were to act independently; nevertheless the area they were expected to cover was vast. Maudit set out with 100 marks immediately. John Wenslowe, clerk, was given another £300 to pay the owners of ships that Maudit seized and William Tresham, clerk, was given £300 to pay for all the ships requisitioned by Spellowe.33

  Ships with a carrying capacity of just twenty tuns were relatively small – capable of carrying twenty large barrels on deck. In requisitioning every one of these vessels in the south coast ports, in the port of Bristol, and in all the ports on the east coast as far north as Newcastle, Henry was taking over almost the whole merchant fleet of the kingdom. Given that Thomas Beaufort had not managed to fulfil his obligation to bring all these ships to Southampton, it was very unlikely that Maudit and Spellowe could achieve the task within four weeks.

  Friday 12th

  It was almost time for the great council, at which Henry would announce his expedition to the lords of the realm. Even now they were assembling in the city of London. The bishops’ and earls’ houses along the Strand and in the city were filled with the returning lords, ladies, knights, esquires, priests and servants. Amid this bustle, Henry took a barge along to the Tower and called the privy council to meet him there to discuss the last political arrangements before Monday’s meeting. Those present were the archbishop of Canterbury, Henry’s brothers John and Humphrey, his uncles Henry and Thomas Beaufort, the bishop of Durham and the keeper of the privy seal.

  According to the agenda, the first matter dealt with was Henry’s correspondence. Two letters needed to be written and sent: one to the duke of Berry and the other to Master Jean Andreu, the king of France’s secretary. Safe conducts had to be drawn up and sent to the ambassadors of the king of France. Philip Morgan, the lawyer, had to be given instructions and empowered to prolong the truce. Instructions were also needed for the English delegates remaining at Constance, as Henry required them henceforth to act as his ambassadors to the emperor. It was agre
ed that it was necessary to speak to the earl of Salisbury ‘about Gascony’ (although exactly what was to be said is not known), and to give him instructions prior to the meeting of the great council on the following Monday. The last item on the morning’s agenda was to speak to the mayor of London about the price of armour. Henry wanted military hardware sold at the lowest rate possible in advance of his coming campaign, and he wanted the mayor to make a proclamation to this effect. Henry told his council what he expected and then despatched them to continue the meeting and draw up the exact documents in accordance with his instructions in the afternoon, at the usual council meeting place of the Dominican friary.34

  Henry had to face the fact that a sailing date in May was unrealistic. Although as recently as yesterday he had ordered his sergeants-at-arms to bring all the substantial ships in the realm to the three ports by 8 May, in line with his earlier instructions, there was no way he would be ready to sail within a month of that date. No doubt he was loath to alter his plans. He had ordered all those who held their land by a royal grant to assemble in London on 24 April; if he put back the date of sailing their presence near the capital would no doubt cause problems, especially if he did not pay them. However, the sheer logistics of the invasion demanded that he do something. Philip Morgan was empowered to prorogue the truce until 8 June. The new embarkation date was the feast of St John the Baptist, 24 June.

  Saturday 13th

  With Henry growing impatient, and Chancellor Beaufort breathing down his bureaucrats’ necks, it is hardly surprising that the safe conducts for the French ambassadors were drawn up immediately.35 It was a huge embassy – comparable in size to the English one that had been left waiting in Paris in March. It was led by Guillaume Boisratier, archbishop of Bourges, who was permitted to bring sixty persons in his household. It also included the bishop of Lisieux travelling with fifty persons; the count of Vendôme travelling with a hundred; Guillaume, count of Tancarville, with a hundred; Charles, seigneur d’Ivry, royal chamberlain, with fifty; Guy de Negella, lord of Offemont, with fifty; Braquetus, lord of Bracquemont, with fifty; John de Roucy with fifty; Master Jean Andreu, the king’s secretary, with ten; Master Gontier Col, another of the king’s secretaries, with ten; Jean de Villebresme with six; and finally Stephen de Malrespect with six. That was a total of 554 people. Henry was dismayed. Large numbers of people always took time to assemble, transport and supply. He clearly hoped that they would come quickly, fail quickly, and go home quickly. To speed their mission, he ordered that the safe conducts should expire on 8 June.36

  Monday 15th

  The day of the great council, which Henry had been planning since at least 4 February, had finally arrived. The spiritual and temporal peers arrived at the Palace of Westminster and gathered in the council chamber: a hall overlooking the Thames called the Star Chamber, on account of it being decorated with stars.37 Forty-three men were there, besides the king and his officers.38 All four dukes were present: the king’s three brothers and his cousin Edward, duke of York. Both archbishops were present. Eight of the nineteen other bishops were there, namely the bishops of London, Winchester, Lincoln, Ely, Norwich, Worcester, Llandaff, and Durham. Five mitred abbots and the English head of the Order of the Knights Hospitaller were present. Nine of the thirteen earls were there, namely the earls of March, Norfolk, Arundel, Dorset, Salisbury, Oxford, Suffolk, Huntingdon and Westmorland. Fourteen other lords responded to Henry’s summons. It was an impressive array.

  Of those who were not there – who had presumably not been summoned – the majority were absent for a good reason. Of the eleven absent bishops, three were at Constance (the bishops of Salisbury, Lichfield, and Wells). A fourth, Stephen Patrington, had only just had his election as bishop of St David’s confirmed by the pope and had yet to be enthroned. The bishops of Bangor and St Asaph were probably busy maintaining watch over their dioceses, which had been disturbed in recent years by Glendower’s revolt. The bishop of Chichester was near death. The bishops of Exeter, Hereford, Rochester and Carlisle were old and frail. Among the secular lords, the earl of Warwick was at Constance, and the earl of Northumberland was in prison in Scotland. The earl of Devon was nearly sixty years of age and blind. The only earl whose absence cannot easily be explained was Richard of Conisborough, earl of Cambridge.

  Richard of Conisborough has not so far been mentioned in this book. But that does not mean he was an unimportant figure. He was Henry’s first cousin twice-removed: the younger brother of both Edward, duke of York, and Constance of York, Lady Despenser. He was thus in a delicate position. While his brother Edward was one of Henry’s closest companions, Richard’s sister was the widow of a man who had tried to kill Henry. She herself had plotted to release Edmund Mortimer and his brother from Windsor Castle in 1405. But that does not go even halfway to illustrating how compromised the twenty-nine-year-old Richard was. As the second son of the previous duke of York, he had probably been named by Richard II as third in line for the throne in April 1399.39 He was Richard II’s godson, and possibly his nephew too, being probably the natural son of Richard II’s half brother, John Holland, duke of Exeter, who had had an adulterous affair with Isabella, duchess of York.40 That meant that his natural father was a man who had been butchered in the course of rebelling against the Lancastrians, during the Epiphany Rising. On top of all this, his first wife had been Anne Mortimer, the sister of the earl of March – the man widely regarded as having a better claim to the throne than Henry. In the event of the earl of March dying without a child, Richard’s three-year-old son stood to inherit all the titles and claims of the house of Mortimer – and that included the family’s claims to the thrones of England and France. Richard of Conisborough cannot have been unaware that all the enmity of Richard II, John Holland and the disinherited and wrongfully imprisoned Mortimers was concentrated in his son. Only his elder brother’s closeness to the king could be considered a factor influencing him to remain loyal.

  To what extent did Henry understand that Richard of Conisborough felt he had been cheated by the Lancastrians? Perhaps a little. He did make some effort to win Richard’s approval. He created him earl of Cambridge in 1414, made him ‘almoner of England’, and confirmed an annuity on him of 350 marks.41 But that was all – and even this was less than it seems, for the title earl of Cambridge had originally been held by Richard’s father (the duke of York), and the 350 marks had originally been granted him by Richard II in response to a dying request by his mother to give him an income of 500 marks.42 It was hardly enough, given that Richard had been discussed in terms of being third in line to the throne in 1399. Nor could he look forward to inheriting another title or further lands. Unlike his elder brother, who had inherited the dukedom of York, Richard had seen his star eclipsed. This was especially vexing as he now had two children of his own: Richard and Isabella. His meagre allowance was insufficient for himself let alone two children of the royal blood.

  Given this situation, the fact that Richard was the sole absent earl is significant. We have already seen how long Henry had been preparing for this great council, and how important it was. So his absence is evidence of some collapse of trust on one side or the other. Richard must have been disappointed that Henry’s annuity (granted the previous year) had not been paid in full. Whereas an earl was expected normally to have an income of £1,000 per annum, to maintain the dignity of the rank, he seems to have received just £285 in the two years since the start of the reign. Henry had promised to find a better means of supporting him but had not actually done so. It was all very well Henry giving him an earldom but that only added to the embarrassment of not being able to keep a large household; he not only wanted a larger income, he needed it. This is why Henry and Richard of Conisborough had a difficult relationship. The king regarded Richard as greedy and ungrateful, and Richard regarded the king as disrespectful to him as a leading member of the royal family.

  Another significant absence from this council meeting was that of Henry, Lord Scrope of Ma
sham. As we have seen, Lord Scrope was one of Henry’s most trusted advisers, and had been for many years. He had fought in Wales with the king, and had conducted Henry’s secret negotiations with the duke of Burgundy in 1414. He was close to the king spiritually too, owning copies of The Revelations of St Bridget and making gifts to Bridlington Priory, where one of the king’s patron saints, St John of Bridlington, was buried. Scrope was not the only baron not to attend this great council but he was certainly the most surprising absentee.

  The king himself opened proceedings, thanking all those present for coming, and then passed over to the chancellor. Beaufort reminded those present that, at the parliament held in November 1414, all the estates of the realm had declared their support for Henry making a voyage to France to reclaim his heritage. However, out of honour and reverence for God, it was deemed necessary first to send ambassadors to the French in order to seek a peaceful solution to the king’s demands for justice. The king had ‘very graciously’ agreed to send another embassy to his ‘adversary of France’ and that embassy had now returned with nothing new to report – despite the fact that

  in order to come to a good peace and accord, and to put an end to all debates, questions and wars between the two kingdoms of England and France, our said lord the king had offered to his adversary of France to lessen the great part of that which was due to him by right. In view of such a default of justice on the part of his adversary, our said lord the king proposes to undertake his voyage, praying that the said lords temporal named below, many of whom were among those at the said parliament [of November 1414] who offered to serve our lord the king in the same voyage with such retinues as it may please our said lord the king to number and assign, praying payment for the first quarter at the beginning of the said quarter, and for the second and third quarters at the end of the second quarter.