Henry V as Warlord

by Seward, Desmond

  In the autumn of 1402 Owain struck in South Wales, attacking Abergavenny, Caerleon, Usk, Newport and Cardiff. Adam of Usk laments how ‘like a second Assyrian, the rod of God’s anger, he did deeds of unheard-of cruelty with fire and sword’. King Henry responded by assembling an unusually large force – 100,000 men and more if Adam can be believed – divided into three armies. One was commanded by Prince Henry. Adam says that Glyn Dŵr and ‘his poor wretches’ hid in their caves and woods. But there was beating rain and hail, even snow. The English suspected that it was work of ‘that great magician, damned Glendower’. They believed that he was a necromancer, that he called up an evil spirit and that he had a magic stone, spat up by a raven, which enabled him and his Welshmen to become invisible. On the night of 7 September there was suddenly so much wind and rain that the king’s tent was blown down – had he not been sleeping in his armour he would have been killed.4 The troops began to die from cold and exposure – ‘his host was well nigh lost’ records Friar Capgrave. By September Henry was back in London having failed for a third time to crush the Welsh. Apart from royal castles and those of the marcher lords, where tiny garrisons hung on grimly, Prince Owain was the effective ruler of Wales. Edmund Mortimer was so disgusted by the king’s failure to ransom him that he married Glyn Dŵr’s daughter, an alliance which had serious implications. In December he sent a letter to his tenants in Maelienydd announcing that he had joined Owain with ‘the object that if King Richard should be alive, he be restored to his crown and, if not, that my honoured nephew who is rightful heir to the said crown shall be King of England, and that the said Owain will have his rights in Wales’.

  In March 1403 Prince Henry was appointed the King’s Lieutenant of the marches of Wales, making him, at sixteen, commander-in-chief in fact as well as name. On 15 May at Shrewsbury he dictated a report to the Royal Council. He had burnt Owain’s houses at Sycharth and Glyndyfrdwy though ‘we found not a soul’. Next day he had captured an important Welsh gentleman, one of Owain’s chieftains, who offered £500 for his life. ‘Howbeit this was not accepted but he had the death, as did divers of his companions.’ He had devastated Meirionydd, a fair and well-inhabited land, while there was so little fodder in Powys that he made his men carry oats for their horses. A fortnight later he sent a report from Shrewsbury saying he was so short of money that he had had to sell his jewels. He warned that the Welsh were about to launch a serious offensive while he had had to divert troops to relieve and revictual the castles of Harlech and Aberystwyth. Although stressing that the situation was very grave, he also insisted that ‘if the war could but be continued, the rebels were never so like to be destroyed as they are at this present’.

  Early in July Owain struck again. Just how dangerous matters were is shown by the postscript added to a letter dated 8 July from the Archdeacon of Hereford, Richard Kingston, to the king:

  And for God’s love, my liege lord, thinketh on yourself and your estate or by my troth all is lost, else but ye come yourself with haste all other will follow after. And all on Friday last Caermarthen town is taken and burnt and the castle yolden by Richard Wigmore and the castle Emlyn is yolden and slain of town of Caermarthen more than fifty persons. Written in right great haste on Sunday; and I cry you mercy and put me in your high grace that I write so shortly; for by my troth that I owe to you, it is needful.5

  However, four days later Glyn Dŵr was defeated seriously enough for him to postpone his invasion of England. This check saved the House of Lancaster from utter ruin. For the Welsh had planned to join forces with those of new, English, allies.

  Henry IV’s enemies, open and secret, had united against him: the Percies; the men of Cheshire and Shropshire who had always supported Richard II; and Owain and Mortimer. The principal architect of this alliance was Hotspur, abetted by his uncle, the Earl of Worcester, Steward of the Royal Household. Hotspur’s first objective was Shrewsbury, where he hoped to capture Prince Henry and join forces with Owain. They would then proclaim that Richard II was still alive and still king, though once Henry IV had been defeated they would place the Earl of March on the throne.

  The king first had definite news of the plot when he was at Nottingham on 12 July. Guessing that Hotspur and Worcester would make for Shrewsbury, he marched there at once, covering nearly sixty miles in three days. The prince must have been overjoyed to see him; many of his men had gone over to the enemy, including some from his own household. When Hotspur and Worcester arrived on 20 July they were thunderstruck at seeing the king’s banner flying from the walls.

  Undaunted, Hotspur chose his ground skilfully, on a hillside known as Hayteley Field; his right flank was protected by the River Severn, his rear by steep ground, his front by dense crops and small ponds. The position, two miles north of the town, was near a hamlet called Berwick where he and his men spent the night. A legend says that on calling for his sword the following morning, Hotspur was told it had been left at Berwick. Badly shaken, he cried, ‘We have ploughed our last furrow for a wizard in mine own country foretold that I should die at Berwick!’ Yet Henry IV was uneasy too. He offered Worcester humiliatingly good terms, fearing the imminent arrival of the Welsh. ‘You are not the rightful heir,’ Worcester told him. ‘We cannot trust you.’

  The battle did not begin until midday. The royal army numbered perhaps 5,000 men, its right wing being commanded by Prince Henry while the vanguard was led by the Earl of Stafford. The king ordered two of his knights to wear royal surcoats so as to resemble him and confuse the enemy. Hotspur had about the same number of troops, among them being a particularly lethal contingent of crack Cheshire archers who wore King Richard’s old badge of the White Hart. Henry IV sent his men uphill at his opponents on a dangerously narrow front. The Cheshire bowmen shot down into them at short range, wreaking murderous havoc – according to the chronicler Walsingham men fell on the king’s side as fast as leaves fall in autumn after a hoar frost. The Earl of Stafford was killed and some of the royal troops ran for their lives. Prince Henry was himself badly wounded in the face by an arrow. He nevertheless refused to leave the field. The royal standard bearer fell and the king’s banner went down. For a moment it looked as though the enemy must win. They had inflicted many casualties. Hotspur’s prisoner the Earl of Douglas – who had become his friend and ally – slew both the knights in royal surcoats. Suddenly Hotspur fell, killed ‘no man wist of whom’. His men fled, Worcester and Douglas being taken prisoner. At least 1,600 men were killed, many of the 3,000 wounded dying later. Next day, a Sunday, Worcester wept over his nephew’s body, before being beheaded on the Monday. Hotspur’s corpse was salted and placed in the pillory at Shrewsbury, propped up by two millstones – the head was then taken to York to be stuck up on Micklegate Bar, his quarters being displayed at other cities.

  However, Owain was soon raiding again, concentrating on Hereford and Monmouth. The king simply did not have enough money to organize a proper offensive against the Welsh. In the autumn a French expedition arrived to help Owain and in November 1403 French ships attacked Kidwelly Castle from the sea. By the following January, the French were shipping cannon to the siege of Conwy. The Welsh captured Harlech and Aberystwyth in the spring of 1404. The former became Owain’s residence, the latter his administrative headquarters. His men went on to take Cardiff, Caerphilly, Usk, Caerleon and Newport. He summoned a Welsh parliament to Machynlleth. At the end of May ambassadors from ‘Owynus, dei gratia, princeps Walliae’ were received at Paris by Charles VI, who presented them with a golden helmet – worn only by sovereigns – for his ‘brother’. Next month the Welsh and the French signed a treaty of alliance against ‘Henry of Lancaster’.

  Prince Henry was given the Duke of York (Rutland) as his lieutenant in South Wales and the Earl of Arundel as his lieutenant in the north. His Welsh foes were heroic but scarcely formidable; although their great gentlemen went armed like English men-at-arms, most were bowmen or spearmen, even knifemen. The women perpetrated barbaric atrocities on the English d
ead and wounded. (After their victory at Pilleth in 1402, in the words of Friar Capgrave, ‘full shamefully the Welshwomen cut off [English] men’s members and put them in their mouths that were dead’.)5 Henry’s troops saw the ‘Welch doggis’ in the way their descendants would one day see Red Indians or Zulus.

  Reporting to his father in June 1404 the prince says that the Welsh are preparing to attack Herefordshire and promises, ‘I will do all that in me lies to withstand the rebels and preserve the English land.’ The same day he wrote to the Council warning that if it cannot provide him with money; ‘We must depart with shame and mischief and the country will be undone, which God forbid.’ Winter postponed the threat. In the following March he reports how, hearing that 8,000 Welshmen were attacking Grosmont, he had sent Lord Talbot against them with a small force. ‘Yet it is known that victory is not in the multitude of the people but in the power of God and well was this shown.’ Talbot’s men had slain between 800 and 1,000. In May at Pwll Melyn near Usk the English killed a further 1,500 including Glyn Dŵr’s brother, Tudur, and took many prisoners, among them Owain’s son, Gruffydd; the latter was sent to the Tower of London – 300 prisoners of lesser birth were beheaded on the spot. A fortnight later Prince Henry’s men were again victorious, capturing the Welsh chancellor, Dr Gruffydd Yonge.

  In February 1405 the governess of the Earl of March and his brother, Lady Despenser – whose husband had lost his life in the conspiracy of 1400 – suddenly fled from Windsor with the boys. She intended to join their uncle, Mortimer, and Owain, who were going to proclaim March as king. Henry IV pursued her in person, catching her at Cheltenham a week later. When questioned she accused her brother-in-law the Duke of York of plotting to kill Henry. York was sent to the Tower but nothing could be proved and he had to be released. The two March boys were guarded more closely than ever.

  Hotspur’s father, Northumberland, old but still very dangerous, had contacted Glyn Dŵr and Mortimer. In February 1405 their envoys signed a triple indenture at Bangor to divide England among them. Northumberland would have England north of the Trent, the midland counties of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, and Norfolk; besides Wales, Owain was to have all lands west of the Severn and south of the Mersey; Mortimer would have southern England.

  Northumberland’s allies in the North were the Earl Marshal (Lord Mowbray), Lord Bardolf, Lord Clifford and Archbishop Scrope of York. A manifesto was posted all over York, complaining of burdens on the clergy, ruin facing the nobility and unbearable taxes on gentry and commons. The archbishop and his friends gathered a small force at Shipton Moor outside York. The Earl of Westmorland held them at bay and then tricked Scrope and Mowbray with a false parley, arresting them on 29 May. Despite protests from Archbishop Arundel and Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne, King Henry beheaded not only Mowbray but Scrope as well. Told that he would lose his head, the latter commented ‘I shall die for the laws and good rule of England’. He was made to ride to his execution on a mare, his head facing the tail in token of ignominy. The Brut says that the king was immediately smitten by leprosy, while miracles began to be worked at the archbishop’s tomb. Only the papal schism saved the king from excommunication. Northumberland and Bardolf fled to Scotland before joining Owain.

  However, the rising had lost Henry IV his chance to crush the Welsh. In August 1405 Marshal Jean de Rieux with 800 men-at-arms, 600 crossbowmen, and 1,200 light horse landed at Milford Haven. A Franco-Welsh army then marched into England to within eight miles of Worcester. But the king was inside the city with a strong force and they withdrew. The French went home the following spring.

  There was a crisis of confidence in King Henry throughout the entire country. He had failed to crush the Welsh, while over the sea Bordeaux was in constant danger. French and Castilian privateers put every English seaman in fear for his life. The king spent too much on his household, squandered Crown revenues and defaulted on loans. The Parliament of 1406, which sat for no less than 139 days between March and December (including the Commons’ first all-night sitting), forced him to appoint a council to oversee financial policy in general and royal household expenditure in particular. The prince, although absent in Wales, was its nominal head while the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir John Tiptoft, MP for Huntingdonshire, was made Treasurer of the Royal Household.

  Tiptoft, who became Treasurer of England the following year, was to play an important part in Prince Henry’s life. He had joined Bolingbroke’s household as a young man and was with him on the march from Ravenspur. He had become a Knight of the Royal Household by 1403, the year in which he entered Parliament. Against his will but much to the king’s relief he was elected Speaker in 1406. He proved a consummate diplomat as well as an excellent administrator, retaining the confidence of both Henry and the Commons.7

  Prince Henry returned home in April 1406 just before the Welsh received their heaviest defeat so far, losing several thousand men. In June Lord Powys defeated Northumberland and Bardolf, who fled to France. By the end of the year Owain was on the defensive. In a policy which combined conciliation and savagery, Prince Henry lured men away from Owain with offers of a pardon and concentrated on re-taking castles.

  Aberystwyth had been Owain’s headquarters since its capture in 1404. Prince Henry besieged the castle with 600 men-at-arms and 1,800 archers in June 1407. Six big cannon were shipped by sea from Bristol while others were brought by road – such as Henry IV’s favourite, the ‘Kinge’s Gonne’, weighing four-and-a-half tons. This was brought from Nottingham accompanied by 971 pounds of saltpetre, 303 pounds of sulphur and 538 pounds of made-up gunpowder. Vast amounts of gunstones, bow staves, bowstrings and arrows were assembled at Hereford. However, the castle was defended by the redoubtable Rhys the Black, Owain’s ablest lieutenant, and the English made slow progress, two of their biggest guns blowing up. In September Rhys agreed to surrender if not relieved by All Saints’ Day (1 November) but Owain, threatening to behead him, slipped briefly into Aberystwyth with reinforcements. The besiegers had to starve the castle into surrender. They were not helped by a dreadful winter, the worst in living memory, or by the dense woods.

  Yet Anglesey, the granary of North Wales, had been subdued in 1406–7. In consequence not only was Aberystwyth doomed but Owain and his men were beginning to starve in their Snowdonian fastness. Adam of Usk crowned his bizarre career (prebendary in Wales, successful lawyer in London, convicted horse-thief, banished man, papal chaplain in Rome, down-and-out in Flanders) by joining them as a double-agent. He gives us some idea of the life they led – ‘sorely tormented with many and great perils of death and capture and false brethren, and hunger and thirst, and passing many nights without sleep for fear of the attacks of foes’.

  Although by now in his late sixties Northumberland made a last attempt to raise England against the House of Lancaster. During the terrible winter of 1407–8 he and Lord Bardolf crossed the frozen Tweed but on 19 February their little army – mainly Percy tenants – was routed by the Sheriff of Yorkshire in the snow at Bramham Moor near Tadcaster. The Earl was killed and Bardolf died of his wounds the same night. It meant that Henry IV was at last secure on his throne. The supporters of Richard II and the Earl of March had been broken or driven underground, the Percies were destroyed and the tide was turning against the Welsh. The heir to the Scots throne, the future James I, had been intercepted on his way to France and would spend the next eighteen years in English captivity – King Henry joked that he himself could teach him French. And the French no longer had time to help the Welsh.

  In France a duchy was not just a title as in England (save for Lancaster) but a huge concentration of rich estates whose dukes commanded large armies of vassals. The Dukes of Burgundy and Orleans had long disputed which of them was to control the poor mad king. Finally John of Burgundy had Louis of Orleans hacked to death one dark November evening in Paris, in the rue Vieille-du-Temp. The body was left lying in the gutter, its hands cut off to stop necromancers using it to raise th
e Devil. Louis’s successor Charles (the poet duke) had married as his first wife Richard II’s widow Isabel and wanted war with England; by contrast the Burgundians wanted peace since war would damage Flemish trade. When Isabel died in 1409 Charles married the daughter of Bernard, Count of Armagnac, who was a hardbitten southern nobleman of such forceful personality that the Orleanists were rechristened Armagnacs. John of Burgundy was a small, ugly man, cynical and treacherous. Besides his duchy he ruled the county of Flanders and held court at his two capitals of Dijon and Brussels with regal pomp. His two great blocks of territory (a vast area of eastern France and what is today Belgium and Holland) were separate; if he could secure the lands between, his power would enormously increase. The squabbles of Burgundians and Armagnacs grew bitterer and bloodier every day.

  Meanwhile Prince Henry presided over Owain’s final destruction. In the summer of 1408 Aberystwyth was at last starved into surrender, Rhys the Black marching forlornly into the hills. Early in 1409 Harlech too surrendered, Glyn Dŵr’s entire family save for one son being taken prisoner; Sir Edmund Mortimer had ‘brought his days of sorrow’ to an end in the castle, dying during the siege. Henceforward Henry watched Welsh affairs from afar. Owain launched a last campaign in 1410 but his men were cut to pieces, his principal lieutenants including Rhys the Black being captured – to be hanged, drawn and quartered immediately. Glyn Dŵr roamed the mountains with an armed band for another three years. No one knows where or when he died.

  Henry V’s Welsh wars prepared him for the conquest of France. He had learnt siegecraft and gunnery (while agreeing with his father that it was cheaper to defend a castle than to capture one). He had also learnt how to control large areas of conquered territory by carefully sited small garrisons – using systematic terror, artificially induced famine and calculated conciliation to hold down the hostile population. He had employed Edward I’s coastal fortresses as they had been during the thirteenth-century conquest of Wales; as strong-points reinforced and revictualled by ship, from whence to rush in fresh troops to isolated garrisons and launch surprise attacks. One day he would use France’s inland waterways in the same fashion.