Henry V as Warlord
Page 28
All the English nobles, commons and clergy are ready at any moment to fight against this realm on the pretext of spurious claims to it, in the hope of winning profit here since God allowed their forebears to win several great battles … they carried off great plunder and wealth to England, taken from both the poor people and the lords of France whom they imprisoned in large numbers.2
As late as 1525, when François I was defeated at Pavia, Henry VIII thought he had a good chance of reconquering what had been Lancastrian France. Calais was lost only in 1558.
For centuries the north-western French celebrated the expulsion of the English. Until 1735 the liberation of Paris in 1436 was celebrated annually by the ‘Procession of the English’. The Earl of Warwick’s banner, captured at Montargis in 1427, was borne in triumph through that town on the Fête des Anglais every year till 1792. Mass was said twice annually in every important church in France until the Revolution in thanksgiving for the freeing of Cherbourg in 1450 and the end of the occupation of Normandy; it continued to be said in some parishes of the Cotentin throughout the nineteenth century. Even now the occupation’s memory lingers. In Maine, farmers near Lassay still refer to the ‘time of the English’ (or did till a few years ago), while further west within living memory country people spoke of ‘going into England’ when crossing what had once been the frontier of the conquest.
After Waterloo in 1815 and after Sedan in 1870, when Alsace-Lorraine had to be surrendered, the French were again invaded and occupied by foreigners. It revived ancient but nonetheless bitter folk memories in the French people of what they had endured at the hands of the English. The cult of Joan of Arc embedded their ancestors’ sufferings still more firmly in the popular mind. No doubt two world wars have done much to make them forget the Hundred Years War. Yet it is no exaggeration to claim that by reviving the war Henry dug a chasm between French and English, a Chasm which has grown deeper down the centuries’.
Henry V’s truest and most lasting monument is not the beautiful chapel at Westminster, not Shakespeare’s play, not the tale of Agincourt and Crispin’s Day. Nor is it the Wars of the Roses. It is that antipathy and distrust which, sadly, all too many Frenchmen feel for those who speak English as their first language. That is the king’s legacy for those of us who live in the last years of the twentieth century. Other men and other wars have deepened it but he was one of its original architects.
Glossary
apanage
royal lands granted by a French king to a younger son for his maintenance, with the title of duke or count.
bailli
royal officer responsible for the administration of justice and of revenue in a baillage or district.
ballinger
English sailing barge usually with from forty to fifty oars, shallow-draughted and clinker built.
barbican
fortified gatehouse with tower above or flanked by towers.
bassinet
conical helmet with ‘hounskul’ (or ‘pig-face’) pointed visor.
bastard
title borne by acknowledged eldest natural son of a noble.
bastille
wooden tower on wheels for assault, used in siege warfare.
bastion
round or polygonal tower projecting from walls.
blanc
French equivalent of groat but mainly of base metal instead of silver.
bombard
heavy cannon used in siege warfare, firing gunstones or metal cannon balls of up to 1,000 lb.
bowyer
bow maker.
brigantine
defensive jacket of metal plates on cloth.
brimstone
sulphur.
calthrop
small metal ball with four (angled) projecting spikes placed on battlefield to maim horses.
captal
Gascon title for captain of a castle.
carrack
large square-rigged sailing vessel of Genoese origin, clinker built.
chambres des comptes
accounting office for French royal finances at Paris or for Norman ducal finances at Caen.
champion
officer charged with defending his lord’s cause in trial by battle.
châtelet
principal criminal court at Paris.
close-helmet
round-topped helmet attached to neck armour.
cog
main type of square-rigged sailing vessel in use in north European waters, clinker built.
crown
French gold coin weighing 3.99 gm (though weight fluctuated), worth 20½ sols.
culverin
light cannon firing lead or bronze bullets – mounted on portable rest and the ancestor of the hand gun and the harquebus.
curtana
the sword ‘curtana’ was the pointless sword of mercy (as opposed to the pointed sword of justice) borne before the English king at his coronation.
destrier
warhorse.
donjon
keep of a castle.
estates
consultative assembly of representatives of the three estates of nobles, clergy and bourgeois.
fletcher
arrow maker.
gabelle
tax on salt – a commodity which could only be bought at royal (in Normandy, ducal) depots.
haro
cry to a lord for rescue.
havoc
the word announcing permission for troops to plunder.
jack
defensive leather coat, either of several layers or quilted, often reinforced with metal studs or small plates.
jupon
short leather tunic worn over chain mail.
lit de justice
plenary session of the parlement presided over by the king of France at which a royal edict was forcibly registered or a peer of France tried.
mangonel
siege engine firing stone shot.
march
borderland – a ‘marcher lord’ was lord of a frontier territory, as in Wales where he had considerable independence.
maul
or mallet – a hammer-type weapon, with a heavy leaden head on a five-foot wooden shaft.
mine
tunnel dug under foundations to undermine walls or towers.
misericorde
‘mercy’ dagger, so called from being used to dispatch enemy wounded.
morning star
form of mace, consisting of a spiked metal ball attached by a chain to a short metal shaft.
noble
principal gold coin of English currency, worth 6s 8d.
pantler
master of the pantry.
parlement
supreme court of appeal in the kingdom of France, situated at the Palais de Justice in Paris.
pâtis
protection money levied by troops on local population.
pavise
large, free-standing shield on hinged support used by archers and crossbowmen as protection when shooting.
pole-axe
combined axe and half-pike, with axe blade balanced by hammer head on five-foot metal shaft.
poundage
customs duty on weight of all imports and exports save bullion.
pourpoint
quilted doublet.
president
principal judicial officer of the parlement at Paris.
provost
royal officer responsible for overseeing administration of justice.
ribeaudequin
cart mounting several small culverins discharged together.
sallet
type of helmet, unattached to neck armour and with or without visor.
saltpetre
potassium nitrate, a component of gunpowder.
salut
Lancastrian French equivalent of the gold crown.
sol
silver or base metal coin (later known as sou) subdivided into 12 deniers
.
sollerets
articulated armour for feet.
sow
a mobile shelter used in siege warfare, with a strong timber roof and covered in damp hides to make it fireproof.
trebuchet
siege engine or catapult hurling rocks or barrels of flaming tow, the principal form of heavy artillery before the bombard and afterwards used to supplement cannon.
tunnage
customs duty on wine imported in casks, levied at so much per tun.
vicomte
Norman administrative official equal or junior in rank to a bailli.
Notes
(See Bibliography for full details of sources)
Introduction
1. Kingsford (ed.), The First English Life of King Henry the Fifth, p. 131
2. Harriss (ed.), Henry V, pp. 209–10
3. Perroy, La Guerre de Cent Ans, pp. 204–5
Chapter I, ‘The Usurpers’
1. The First English Life of King Henry the Fifth, p. 17
2. ‘Franche dague, dit un Anglais/Vous ne faites que boire vin.’
3. Froissart, cit. Ascoli, La Grande Bretagne devant l’Opinion Française, p. 33
4. Hardyng, Chronicle, p. 353
5. Adam of Usk picked it up, Chronicon Adae de Usk, p. 119
Chapter II, ‘Prince Henry and Prince Owain’
1. Adam of Usk, op. cit., p. 42
2. Wylie, History of England under Henry IV, p. 107
3. Adam of Usk, op. cit., p. 57
4. Capgrave, The Chronicle of England, p. 279
5. Hingeston (ed.), Royal and Historical Letters during the Reign of Henry IV, Vol. I, p. 149
6. Capgrave, op. cit., p. 279, who adds, ‘Many othir inconvenientis did thei that time.’
7. For Tiptopt’s career, see Complete Peerage and Dictionary of National Biography
Chapter III, ‘He Would Usurp the Crown’
1. Taylor and Roskell (eds), Gesta Henrici Quinti, p. 19: ‘almost second to none in the King’s confidence.’
2. Capgrave, op. cit., p. 291
3. Juvénal, in Dénifle, La Desolation des eglises, monastères et hôpitaux en France pendant la Guerre de Cent Ans, Vol. I, p. 505
4. Jean de Montreuil, cit. Lewis, Essays in Later Medieval French History, p. 194
5. The First English Life of King Henry the Fifth has a strange tale of how the prince wore a fantastic coat, the symbolism of which has been forgotten, for this second meeting, pp. 11–12
6. Taylor and Roskell (eds), op. cit., p. 13
7. The First English Life of King Henry the Fifth, p. 17
8. McFarlane, Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. VIII, p. 379
9. Foxe, Book of Martyrs in The Acts and Monuments, Vol. III, pp. 235–9
Chapter IV, ‘No Lordship’
1. Chronique du Réligieux de Saint-Denys, Vol. IV, p. 770
2. Vita et Gesta Henrici Quinti, p. 24
3. The First English Life of King Henry the Fifth, p. 17
4. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages, p. 96; Taylor and Roskell (eds), op. cit., p. 181, prays that under a single ruler England and France may ‘turn as soon as possible against the unsubdued and bloody faces of the heathen’.
5. ‘It is upon admiration, not affection, that his historical reputation has always been based.’ Allmand, ‘Henry V the Soldier, and the War in France’, in Henry V, (ed. Harriss) p. 132
6. Livius de Frulovisis (Tito Livio), Vita Henrici Quinti, p. 5; The First English Life of King Henry the Fifth, p. 17
7. Jacob, The Fifteenth Century, p. 480
8. For Netter, see Dictionary of National Biography; also Wylie and Waugh, The Reign of Henry V. Vol. I, pp. 239–41; for a more sympathetic portrait see Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, Vol. II, pp. 145–48
9. Knowles, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 175–82
10. For Lollards, see Knowles, op. cit., Vol. II, passim; and McFarlane, Wycliffe and the Beginnings of English Non-conformity
11. See McFarlane, Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights
12. Taylor and Roskell (eds.), op. cit., pp. 10–11
13. ibid., p. 7
14. Catto, ‘Religious Change under Henry V’ in Henry V (ed. Harriss), p. 97
15. ibid., p. 115
16. The most recent and comprehensive study is Powell, ‘The Restoration of Law and Order’ in Henry V(ed. Harriss), pp. 53–74
17. Catto, ‘The King’s Servants’ in Henry V (ed. Harriss), pp. 82–3
18. Rymer, Foedera, Conventiones, Vol. IX, pp. 300–1
19. Taylor and Roskell (eds.), op. cit., p. 19
20. Capgrave, op. cit., p. 309
21. Wylie and Waugh, The Reign of Henry V, Vol. I, pp. 517–39; the best short account of the Southampton Plot is in Taylor and Roskell, op. cit., App. III, pp. 188–90
21. McFarlane, Nobility of Later Medieval England, p. 246
Chapter V, ‘The English Armada’
1. Wylie and Waugh, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 447–8
2. See J. Palmer, ‘The War Aims of the Protagonists and the Negotiations for Peace’ in The Hundred Years War (ed. Fowler), pp. 66–70
3. Strecche, Chronicle, pp. 150–1
4. Taylor and Roskell (eds.), op. cit., pp. 17–19
5. Wylie and Waugh, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 113–4
6. Harriss (ed.), Henry V, p. 40
7. McFarlane, Nobility of Later Medieval England; and Postan, Economic History Review
8. Hewitt, ‘The Organisation of War’ in Henry V (ed. Harriss), pp. 82–3
9. See Richmond, ‘The War at Sea’, in The Hundred Years War (ed. Fowler), pp. 96–121
10. Taylor and Roskell (eds.), op. cit., p. 21
Chapter VI, ‘Our Town of Harfleur’
1. Jacob, Henry V and the Invasion of France, p. 85
2. Taylor and Roskell (eds.), op. cit., p. 39
3. Capgrave, op. cit., p. 311
4. ibid., p. 13
5. Allmand, Lancastrian Normandy, p. 51
Chapter VII, ‘That Dreadful Day of Agincourt’
1. Taylor and Roskell (eds.), op. cit., p. 67
2. Livius de Frulovisis (Tito Livio), op. cit., p. 14
3. Taylor and Roskell (eds.), op. cit., p. 77
4. Monstrelet, Chroniques d’Enguerran de Monstrelet, Vol. III, p. 102
5. Waurin, Receuil des croniques et anchiennes istories de la Grant Bretaigne à present nomme Engleterre, 1399–1422, Vol. II, p. 208
6. Taylor and Roskell (eds.), op. cit., pp. 85–7
7. Livius de Frulovisis (Tito Livio), op. cit., pp. 19–20
8. Halle, The Union of Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancastre and Yorke, p. 70
9. The First English Life of King Henry the Fifth, p. 64
Chapter VIII, ‘To Teach the Frenchmen Courtesy’
1. Printed in Taylor and Roskell (eds.), op. cit., App. IV (formerly ascribed to John Lydgate).
2. ibid., p. 113
3. ibid., p. 175
4. Wylie and Waugh, op. cit., Vol. II, Ch. 45, ‘The Navy’
5. Taylor and Roskell (eds.) op. cit., App. III, pp. 189–90
6. ‘Il se savait remarquablement secondé par son frère Jean, le duc de Bedford.’ Favier, Guerre de Cent Ans, p. 437
7. Harriss (ed.) op. cit., p. 45
8. See Powicke, ‘Lancastrian Captains’, Essays in Medieval History, op. cit.
9. Taylor and Roskell (eds.), op. cit., p. 151.
Chapter IX, ‘The Fall of Caen’
1. The Brut of England, p. 382
2. Chartier, Chronique de Charles VII, roi de France, Vol. I, p. 6
3. ‘Propter horrorem nominis Anglorum … ferocissime belue quam homines.’ Basin, Histoire de Charles VII, pp. 62–4
4. Chronique du Réligieux de Saint-Denys, Vol. VI, p. 100
5. ibid., Vol. VI, p. 104
6. Wylie and Waugh, op. cit., Vol. III, p. 61
7. Morosini, Chronique d’Antonio Morosini: Extraits rélativs à l’histoire de Fra
nce, 1414–1428, Vol. II, pp. 146–9
8. Chronique du Réligieux de Saint-Denys, Vol. VI, p. 134
9. ibid., Vol. VI, p. 161
10. Juvénal, Histoire de Charles VI, p. 539
11. The First English Life of King Henry the Fifth, p. 102
12. Chronique du Réligieux de Saint-Denys, Vol. VI, p. 165
13. ibid., Vol. VI, p. 165
14. ibid., Vol. VI, p. 381
Chapter X, ‘The Fall of Rouen’
1. Monstrelet, op. cit., Vol. III, p. 278
2. Page, ‘The Siege of Rouen’ in The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London, pp. 4–5
3. Riley (ed.), Memorials of London and Lower Life in the XIIIth, XIVth and XVth Centuries.
4. Page, op. cit., p. 18
5. The First English Life of King Henry V, pp. 134, 135