Sunday 3rd
The interim government in England was dealing with the routine business arising from the year’s events. Following the death of Bishop Courtenay, the duke of Bedford and the council gave permission for the monks of Norwich Cathedral to elect a new bishop. And Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, was peremptorily reminded that he still owed a fine for his marriage. The first instalment of the 10,000 marks was set at £2,000 by the council; payment was required immediately.5
William Zouche, Lord Zouche of Haringworth, died today. He had been at Southampton at the time of Henry’s departure, and had sat as one of the judges at the trial of the earl of Cambridge and his co-conspirators. Although it is not certain that he was on the campaign itself, the king had recently nominated him as a Knight of the Garter, to succeed the recently deceased John Daubridgecourt, who had contracted dysentery at Harfleur. He may therefore have been nominated in respect of his good service on the campaign. Either way, he was never installed in his seat of honour at one of the two round tables at Windsor. His place was eventually offered by Henry to the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund, who came to England to be installed the following year.6
Monday 4th
Relatively few noblemen gathered at Westminster for the parliament that opened today. Most secular lords were still with the king in France. Only nineteen were present in the Painted Chamber alongside the forty-nine prelates and approximately two hundred representatives of the shires and the boroughs to hear Chancellor Beaufort make the opening speech.
How different the mood would have been had the original news received at Westminster – about an English defeat – been true! As it was, Beaufort knew he had a willing and a thankful audience. With the duke of Bedford presiding, Beaufort declared emphatically that those present should ‘honour the king, because he himself honours God Almighty above all others’ and because the king had protected the rights of the Holy Church. Many of those hearing those words ‘honour the king’ would have understood the biblical connotation – from the first letter of Peter:
17. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.
18. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward.
When Duke John acknowledged the rightness of these sentiments, and officially declared that parliament was in session, Beaufort continued in the same manner of lauding the king. This parliament, he declared, had been summoned for two reasons. He explained that both might be best understood through the biblical line from Judges 15: 11: ‘as they did unto me, so I have done unto them’. Except in Beaufort’s phrasing it became ‘As he did unto us, so let us do unto him’.
The first reason why parliament should ‘do unto Henry as he had done unto them’ was that he had striven for good government. Ever since his coronation, the king had worked ‘for the preservation and reform of the law, and for the peace of the land, and for the benefit, safety and tranquillity of all his subjects’. So they were obliged to offer Henry something in acknowledgement of his labours.
The second reason concerned France. Beaufort explained that although Henry had done all he could to secure a lasting peace and avoid the shedding of Christian blood, he had been unable to secure a restitution of his rights through diplomacy. Thus, ‘forsaking all kinds of personal pleasure, comfort and safety, he undertook the same expedition and venture for that reason, believing wholeheartedly in his lawful quarrel and in Almighty God, in accordance with the words of the wise man who says, “strive thou for justice, and the Lord shall fight with you”’ (Ecclesiasticus, 4: 33). And with that Beaufort went on to tell the story of the whole expedition – from the siege of Harfleur, ‘the strongest town in this part of the world’, which had been ‘surrendered without the loss of life’, to the march across Northern France.
Already the propaganda elements were in place – not the least of which was the obfuscation of the fact that forty or so men had lost their lives in pursuit of the king’s ambitions at Harfleur. Beaufort went on to stress that Henry took only ‘a small number of men in comparison with the might of his enemies’ and that he
encountered and fought with a large number of dukes, earls, barons and lords of France and other lands and countries overseas, and with all the chivalry and might of France and the same lands and countries; and how finally, with the Almighty’s help and grace, all the French were defeated, taken or killed, without great loss to the English; and how he, after such a glorious and marvellous victory, has now arrived safely at his said town of Calais with his men and prisoners, praise be to God, with the greatest honour and gain that the realm of England has ever had in so short a time.7
Having reminded all those present of the drama of the expedition, and the courage of the king, and above all else the judgment of the Almighty, Beaufort then delivered the rhetorical flourish, repeating ‘as he did unto us, so let us do unto him’. He declared that this glorious victory was just the beginning, and that without their continued help, the honourable and profitable expedition would be unable to continue. It was the duty of each and every man present at that parliament to consider how he might make provision for the continuation of the king’s military success.
It was a recipe for an ongoing war of aggression. But in the euphoria of the moment, that was exactly what the English parliament wanted. Nothing illustrates better how Henry was a man of his time than the ecstatic reception of the news that the English were going to sustain the war effort in France, on a permanent basis. The English parliament seems to have forgotten that the war aims did not extend beyond the king’s dynastic security and personal pride.
Wednesday 6th
Beaufort had concluded his opening address on the 4th with an exhortation to the commons to elect their Speaker immediately, and to present him the following day. There was a delay. But today the commons presented Sir Richard Redman, the duke of Bedford’s own councillor. It was a tacit acquiescence of Henry’s triumph over parliament as well as over the French nobility. Whatever the king’s uncle and brother asked for would be granted.
In the meanwhile the government continued to support the king at Calais. An order was issued from Westminster that no corn should be exported to any port on the continent except Calais or Harfleur.8
Friday 8th
The crimes of the earl of Cambridge, Sir Thomas Gray and Lord Scrope assumed a different complexion in the light of Henry’s victory. Any public belief in Scrope’s innocence was eradicated by the judgment of God in Henry’s favour. In that sense Agincourt acted as a sort of baptism in which all Henry’s past sins and errors were wiped clean away, and all his decisions justified – however doubtful they may have seemed at the time. Henry’s malicious propaganda, concerning the attempt on his life and Scrope accepting bribes from the French, was accordingly accepted throughout the kingdom. Members of Parliament were left in no doubt that Scrope’s execution was entirely justified.
The confirmation of the judgments was the business of today’s parliament. The confessions of each executed man were read out, and the lords declared that the judgments were all good, just and lawful. The prelates also supported the judgments, in case any trace of guilt remained attached to Henry’s name for acting in such a ruthless manner. Every effort was made to present Henry as a scrupulously pious and God-fearing man.
Aside from the business of parliament, the royal council ordered that the prior of the House of Jesus of Bethlehem – Henry’s new Charterhouse at Sheen – be paid £20 for the new works he had undertaken there. Presumably finances for this project were limited by the war effort; work was still underway two years later.9
Monday 11th: Feast of St Martin (Martinmas)
The feast of St Martin was an especially carefully observed feast. It fell at a date coinciding with several key moments in the agricultural calendar. The first snows could be expected to fall from this date. Those animals that were not going to be fed and kept through the dark months were singled out and slaughtered.
Pigs were held down and bled to death slowly, then butchered and salted down for the dark months ahead. Bullocks were likewise felled; and sheep, goats and geese too. It was thus a day of plenty in many larger households: there was more than enough meat to go around and gallons of wine, for St Martin of Tours was the patron saint of vintners, and the day marked the occasion for tasting the new vintage. In addition, Martinmas was still considered the last great feast before the long period of abstinence which was Advent. There was a folklore element to the day too: the weather conditions were a sign of the weather for the rest of the winter – snow on Martinmas was thought to indicate a mild Christmas. Finally, St Martin was famous for cutting his cloak in half to share it with a beggar; hence it was a day when even the poorest people could expect their wealthier neighbours to be generous.
*
At Calais it was the day for the prisoners from Harfleur to present themselves. De Gaucourt, d’Estouteville and the other knights and gentlemen whom Henry had temporarily released thus gathered in the town.
When they had sworn their oaths at the end of September, Henry’s representatives had told them that if a battle had been fought before Martinmas, then they were simply to pay their ransoms. They were only required to submit to imprisonment again if no battle had been fought. On account of this assurance, many turned up expecting to pay a sum of money and then leave as free men, after swearing never to fight against the king of England again. However, Henry declared that if they had previously heard that they would be able to leave freely, they had been misinformed. They were now his prisoners once more.
For Raoul de Gaucourt, who was still very ill, this was a bitter blow. They had done the honourable thing and fulfilled their vow to submit; but Henry saw no reason to observe his side of the bargain. He was particularly harsh with de Gaucourt himself. Henry declared that 140 or 160 Englishmen had been captured by the French in the course of the campaign, and if de Gaucourt wanted to be a free man again, he should set about ransoming all the Englishmen who were left languishing in French gaols. The men who had pillaged the English baggage train at Maisoncelle during the battle of Agincourt had looted a number of precious items, all of which Henry wanted back: de Gaucourt was to arrange for their return. Henry also told de Gaucourt that he must provide two hundred casks of Beaune wine, to be sent to him in London. And all this despite de Gaucourt technically being the prisoner of Sir John Cornwaille.
De Gaucourt went to the French noblemen imprisoned at Calais and asked for advice. They told him to do what Henry asked, otherwise he risked spending many years in an English prison. De Gaucourt accordingly asked the king for permission to leave Calais and arrange all the things Henry had requested. He paid the ransoms of all the English prisoners he could find – 120 or 140 of them. He redeemed all the jewels he could trace, and sent them to Henry in London. He also sent the Beaune wine. But although the total cost of all this was in excess of 13,000 crowns (about £2,167), Henry did not remit de Gaucourt’s ransom, or allow him his freedom. When de Gaucourt came to England he found that he still owed Sir John Cornwaille his full ransom of 10,000 crowns, and would remain his prisoner until it was paid in full. Despite fulfilling his vows, and despite Henry’s own claim to be the protecting sovereign of France and its subjects, de Gaucourt – one of the founders of the Order of the Prisoner’s Shackle – remained a prisoner for many years to come.10
Most great medieval kings respected the courage and resilience of their adversaries. If they vanquished them, treating them well simply enhanced their chivalric standing. But as far as we can judge, Henry did not see the French knights in a chivalric way. He saw them in a religious context – as the losers in a religious war, to be dealt with according to the law of Deuteronomy in the most extreme situations. With regard to de Gaucourt personally, Henry probably thought he was being merciful by letting the man live. From a more objective point of view, he cheated him. After defending Harfleur so long and so bravely, de Gaucourt deserved better.
*
The death of Sir John Chidiock at the siege of Harfleur had meant the family estates stood to be inherited by his fourteen-year-old heir, John. Custody of these manors was granted to Edmund, earl of March, presumably as compensation for his expenditure on the campaign. Clearly his involvement in the earl of Cambridge’s plot had not lost him all favour, even if he did still have to pay the 10,000 marks fine for arranging a marriage without Henry’s approval.11
Tuesday 12th
In line with the chancellor’s announcement to parliament that the government would seek a large quantity of money to pay for the ongoing war, the duke of Bedford ordered the archbishop of York to hold a convocation of the clergy of his province before the next 20 January. The convocation of Canterbury was due to meet on the 18th of this month. The clergy of the two provinces were expected to grant an extra subsidy to pay for the next phase of military operations. No doubt many of the spiritual and secular lords hoped that this taxation meant that the loans they had made to the crown would be repaid sooner rather than later. In reality it would be years before any of them were fully recompensed, and many were never repaid.12
Only one statute seems to have been enrolled in this parliament – unsurprisingly, given the king’s absence. It too concerned money. Foreign coins that had previously been forbidden or ruled illegal tender were not to be imported into the realm. Presumably the thinking was that the silver content of English coins had to be maintained at a high level, in order to preserve the value of the currency. There was a danger that the value of the foreign coins would outweigh that of the English ones, which had been reduced in weight in 1412 in order to raise money for the treasury.
Another opportunity to gain a large sum of money easily was recognised in reversing a piece of legislation that threatened Welsh landowners. After the revolt of Owen Glendower in 1400 the English parliament had forced Henry IV to pass more and more extreme anti-Welsh legislation. Now, with Glendower’s revolution a spent force and the man himself dead, there was less danger. The government therefore issued a proclamation that, in return for a payment of £1,000, the lands of Welsh tenants of the king would not escheat to the crown but would pass directly to the heirs, according to Welsh law.13
Wednesday 13th
This, the tenth day of the parliament, was the last. It thus became the shortest parliament in medieval English history. It had served its two major functions: to ratify the king’s action at Southampton against the conspirators and to secure an advancement of more money to pay for the expenses of fighting in France. By the end of the day the members had agreed to bring forward the collection of the second instalment of the large tax granted in November 1414 by two months. They had also granted a further tax of a tenth and a fifteenth and declared that the king might receive the wool subsidy and various other customs dues for the rest of his life without having to ask parliament. In reality, the grant of the wool subsidy was a matter of routine, so this is less generous than it at first appears; however, it was very unusual to see members of parliament voluntarily giving up some of their hard-earned rights. This, combined with the grants concerning the increased taxation, is a reflection of the euphoria that the news of Agincourt generated among the English landowning classes.
The duke of Bedford made one exception to this general subsidy of a tenth and a fifteenth. The inhabitants of the most northerly counties of Cumberland, Westmorland and Northumberland were to be exempt from liability as they had suffered ‘yearly’ attacks, their lands being repeatedly ‘burned, despoiled and destroyed by the sudden invasions of the king’s enemies of Scotland’. They could hardly be expected to pay for the king’s war in France when he was failing to defend their lands in England.14
Friday 15th
In Paris the council had spent the last two days in feverish discussion concerning the destruction of the people and dignity of France by marauding men-at-arms, and the chaotic finances of the realm. The intention had been to come to some sort of resolution yesterday concer
ning future action; but that had proved impossible. So the debate continued today. Five or six masters of the council were deputed to draw up instructions that would govern an embassy to go to the king at Rouen. The purpose of the mission was to draw the king’s attention to the problems his people were facing. They also were to outline a solution: a series of ordonnances, or regulations for the government of the kingdom, together with certain proposals for the reorganisation of the kingdom’s finances.15
There was good reason for the councillors to be concerned. John the Fearless was planning to advance on Paris. Distraught and angry at the loss of his two brothers and many of his vassals, and quick to blame the Armagnac leadership, he had set out on the 5th from Dijon and arrived at Châtillon-sur-Seine on the 8th. There he had waited a week, conferring with his council and agents in Paris, who no doubt helped foment the stories that he was about to march on the city and liberate the people from the oppression and incompetence of the Armagnacs. The Burgundians in Paris were furious that the Armagnac government had allowed the royal troops to pillage their fellow Frenchmen in Normandy, and commit many rapes in the process, while the English were said to have been relatively abstemious on both accounts.
Henry’s propaganda was working as effectively in France as in England. Despite the shared disaster of Agincourt, the rift between the two warring French sides was as deep as ever.
Saturday 16th
Henry sailed from Calais. In the course of crossing the Channel there were terrible gales. A snowstorm blew up, and the fleet was scattered. Two ships foundered with the loss of all hands; Henry himself did not reach Dover until nightfall. It would have been ironic in the extreme if Henry’s own ship had foundered, and people saw God’s judgment damning him immediately after he himself had seen his victory at Agincourt as a sign of God’s approval. But as things turned out, Henry and his ship survived, and so God was deemed to have acted to preserve the king of England against the elements, thus further underlining Henry’s divinely approved position.16
1415: Henry V's Year of Glory Page 55