The Demon's Brood

by Desmond Seward

  When young, he was an impressive little man, tough, elegant, urbane and handsome, with a forked beard. Describing the malady that afflicted him in mid-life, John Capgrave – the Augustinian prior of Lynn, who may have seen him there – says he lost the ‘beauty of his face’, suggesting previous good looks.14 The effigy on his tomb at Canterbury Cathedral shows a bloated countenance, indicating self-indulgence rather than disease. He had a friendly manner if a sardonic wit. In no way a xenophobe like his uncle Gloucester, when in exile at Paris during 1398–9 he attended theological disputes in the university lecture halls and made an excellent impression on Charles VI, who wanted him to marry a Valois princess.

  We know little about Mary Bohun, his first wife, apart from her bearing four sons who lived to manhood and two daughters. The sons were Henry, Prince of Wales, Thomas, Duke of Clarence, John, Duke of Bedford and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Mary died in 1394, giving birth to her second daughter. Her successor, whom Henry married in 1403, was Joan of Navarre, the widowed Duchess of Brittany – four years younger than himself, with nine children by her first husband, an amiable lady later accused of witchcraft. Sadly, it was ‘an alliance which gave him neither strength abroad nor comfort at home’.15

  There was a merciless streak. On campaign in Wales, realizing that a Welsh gentleman was deliberately leading the army the wrong way, Henry had him hanged, drawn and quartered on the spot. Even so, he possessed a kindly side. In 1400 he awarded Matthew Flint, tooth-drawer of London and obviously good at his job, a perpetual allowance of 6d a day to draw the teeth, without payment, of anybody who could not afford an extraction.

  He did not have favourites, but got on admirably with his four sons, entrusting them with responsibility from an early age. He was also on good terms with his three Beaufort half-brothers (Gaunt’s children by Katherine Swynford, who had been legitimized by Richard II), furthering their careers, if introducing legislation that barred them from succeeding to the throne. He had trusted henchmen, servants of the duchy of Lancaster who became his ministers and household officials. If he listened to anybody, it was to Archbishop Arundel.

  Henry loved hunting and hawking, while he was a tiltyard champion into middle age. Indoors, he was the most literate monarch since his namesake Henry II. Not only did the cupboards built for his library at Eltham hold the Polychronicon (Ralph Higden’s universal history) and John Gower’s Confessio Amantis, which was dedicated to him, but a book with a commentary in Greek if he needed help to construe it. He read and wrote English, French and Latin, unlike Edward III, who had been barely able to scrawl a few words. (On a state paper of 23 October 1403 he noted ‘necessitas non habet legem’ – necessity knows no law.16) He invited Christine de Pizan, one of the first women to write in defence of her sex, to live at his court, but she preferred to stay in Paris. He possessed a highly developed taste in music, owning the first known recorder in England, which he himself played, as well as a harp and a metal-stringed cither (half-lute, half-mandolin). He had some knowledge of polyphony, composing sacred music. He built little, however, apart from a massive gatehouse at Lancaster Castle.

  In religion, Henry was deeply pious, with a cult of St Thomas of Canterbury perhaps instilled by Arundel – unusually for a Plantagenet king, he was buried in Thomas’s cathedral. He also venerated another ‘St Thomas’, his maternal ancestor, the Earl of Lancaster, who had been executed by Edward II, presenting St George’s Chapel with a set of vestments that depicted the earl’s ‘martyrdom’. When an invalid, he never tired of visiting shrines, in hope of a cure.

  The Percy challenge

  Henry’s coup owed a lot to the Percy family. In recompense, Henry, Earl of Northumberland, had been made Constable of England and Lord of Man, while his son Harry Hotspur became justiciar of north Wales. Northumberland’s brother, Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester was appointed steward of the royal household, lieutenant in south Wales and Prince Henry’s governor. The two earls also administered the vast Welsh estates of the young Earl of March.

  However, they were angry at Henry rewarding Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland (who had married his half-sister Joan Beaufort) with lands promised to the Percys. Worse still, when Northumberland routed the Scots at Homildon Hill in 1402 and took five Scottish earls prisoner, the king refused to let them be ransomed, depriving Northumberland of large sums of money even though Henry owed him £40,000. Northumberland grew even angrier after Henry forbade him to help his son-in-law Sir Edmund Mortimer, who had been captured by the Welsh, since Sir Edmund was uncle of the Earl of March, Richard II’s heir. When Hotspur suggested ransoming Mortimer, he was struck by the king, who shouted ‘Traitor!’

  Because of their Welsh involvement in Wales, the Percys had contacts with Owain Glyndwr, who had proclaimed himself Prince of Wales in September 1400. Owain was no mere hill chieftain but a sophisticated aristocrat. Besides speaking French, Latin and English, he had studied at the Inns of Court in London, fought under the late Earl of Arundel’s command and known Richard II’s court. Nevertheless, as heir of the Princes of Powys, he kept alive the old Welsh ways, employing bards and harpers at his castle of Sycherth and, familiar with his native land’s literature, believed in prophecies foretelling the expulsion of the English. He was not only a born guerrilla leader, but a consummate diplomat who knew how to exploit Percy dissatisfaction.

  Early in 1403 the king made the other ‘Prince of Wales’, his sixteen-year-old son Henry, Lieutenant of the Welsh Marches (local commander-in-chief), with headquarters at Chester. By then it looked as though Owain was winning. ‘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’, the Archdeacon of Hereford wrote frantically to the king on 8 July. ‘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.’17

  Edmund Mortimer changed sides, marrying Owain’s daughter Catrin. (An ‘inferior match’, sniffed the monk Walsingham.)18 He then won over his sister’s husband, Harry Hotspur, whose father Northumberland gave Henry a last, veiled warning, demanding full payment of the £40,000 he was owed. He signed his letter ‘Matatyas’ – by which he meant he had been a father to the king in helping him topple Richard, just as Judas Maccabeus’s father Matathias had helped Judas against the tyrant Antiochus.19

  The Percys renounced their allegiance, claiming they had supported Henry’s right to be Duke of Lancaster, but not his right to the throne. Marching south with several hundred retainers, Hotspur recruited many of King Richard’s Cheshire archers, and was joined by his uncle, the Earl of Worcester. Their plan was to capture the prince, who was at Shrewsbury, join forces with Owain and replace Henry IV with the Earl of March.

  On his way north to fight the Scots, the king reacted quickly, reaching Shrewsbury first with 14,000 men. Undismayed, on 21 July Hotspur drew up his army of 10,000 in order of battle on a low hillside 3 miles from Shrewsbury. Fearing Glyndwr or Northumberland might arrive at any moment, the king offered terms that Hotspur was inclined to accept, but Worcester told Henry, ‘You are not the rightful king and we don’t trust you.’

  The battle began at noon, the first time English armies went into action against each other with the longbow. Flight after flight of arrows shot downhill by the Cheshire men nearly decided the outcome at the start, 4,000 royal troops bolting. Hotspur’s men-at-arms charged at the king, killing most of his Knights of the Body, but failed to find him – he had dressed two of his household in royal surcoats, who paid with their lives, while he himself took refuge among his billmen. His right wing fled after its commander Lord Stafford fell dead and on the left the Prince of Wales was wounded in the face by an arrow. Hotspur’s men shouted, ‘Henry Percy is king!’

  Then an unknown archer sent an arrow through Hotspur. As soon as the king heard, he raised the cry ‘Henry Percy is dead!’ and the enemy ran, pursued for 3 miles. In all
about 2,000 men were killed or wounded. The Earl of Worcester was captured, to be summarily hanged and quartered. Although Hotspur’s corpse had been buried, it was dug up, salted and put on show in the Shrewsbury pillory, before his head and quarters were sent off for display in the north country.

  Three weeks later, Northumberland submitted, kneeling before the king at York and claiming he had known nothing of his son’s plans. Placed under house arrest, he lost his office of constable and was made to hand over his strongholds. He was soon freed and given back his castles, as the best man to defend the North against the Scots.

  A Welsh Wales?

  Owain Glyndwr remained on the offensive, helped by the French, who supplied cannon; Aberystwyth, Caerleon, Caerphilly, Cardiff, Harlech, Newport and Usk were all taken by the ‘Welch doggis’ (Friar Capgrave’s term) in 1404. Charles VI signed an alliance with ‘Owynis, dei gratia princeps Walliae’ against ‘Henry of Lancaster’, sending Owain a gold helmet of a sort worn by sovereigns. Poorly armed, mainly archers and knifemen, the Welsh did not have it all their own way, as their opponents were led by Prince Henry, who was already a brilliant commander. However, he had too few troops and Owain made steady progress, avoiding battles, capturing strongholds. Harlech Castle became his residence while he set up his administrative headquarters at Aberystwyth, appointing a chancellor. In 1404 he was crowned Prince of Wales at Machynlleth, where he held a parliament attended by bishops and abbots.

  Meanwhile, the old Countess of Oxford, Robert de Vere’s mother, decided that Richard II must still be alive. In spring 1404 she wrote to the Duke of Orléans, asking him to land in Essex, join Owain at Northampton and proclaim Richard king again. If ridiculous, it was the sixth attempt to topple Henry since he had come to the throne.

  The king was given another fright in mid-February 1405 when Lady Despenser, governess of the little Earl of March and his brother, fled from Windsor with her charges, using specially cut keys to escape under cover of darkness. She planned to join their uncle who, with Owain, would proclaim March as king. (She had her own score to settle with Henry, her husband having been lynched after the Epiphany Plot.) Riding through the night, the king caught them at Cheltenham. Lady Despenser then accused her brother, the Duke of York, of plotting to kill the king – a piece of spiteful imagination. Even so, when the duke denied it her squire offered to prove it in trial by battle, and although the combat did not take place, York spent several weeks in the Tower.

  Henry soon learned why Lady Despenser had chosen that particular moment to try and take March to Wales. Towards the end of February the envoys of Owain, Northumberland and Sir Edmund Mortimer had signed an agreement at Bangor. Owain would rule Wales with the border counties, the earl would take the north country and the eastern Midlands, and Mortimer would have southern England. The document quoted a prophecy from the Brut of England, that ‘a dragon shall rise up in the north which shall be full fierce and shall move war against the moldewarp [a magic mole] . . . [and] this dragon shall gather again into his company a wolf that shall come out of the west that shall begin war against the moldewarp on his side . . . Then shall come a lion out of Ireland that shall fall in company with them, and then shall England tremble.’ The dragon (Northumberland), the wolf (Owain) and the lion (Mortimer) would expel the moldewarp (Henry) and divide England between them.20

  But early in May 1405 a large Welsh force was beaten near Usk, Owain’s brother Tudur being killed while his son Gruffydd and his chancellor Dr Yonge were captured – 300 other Welsh prisoners were summarily beheaded on the spot. Just as the king was about to follow up the victory, he heard of danger in the north.

  Archbishop Scrope’s rebellion

  Despite welcoming him in 1399, many north country folk besides the Percys had turned against Henry.21 Aided by the Earl of Norfolk (Nottingham’s son), at the end of May 1405 Archbishop Scrope of York gathered 8,000 armed men at the northern capital, in protest against ill treatment of the clergy and excessive taxation, and demanding a free parliament at London. In reality he was preparing to support his cousin Northumberland, who was about to rebel. Inflammatory placards were posted all over York.

  Before Northumberland could arrive, the Earl of Westmorland faced down the rebels at Skipton Moor outside the city, arresting the two leaders under a false parley, after which their followers went home. Northumberland fled in despair. When Henry reached York, despite Archbishop Arundel’s protests and the resignation of the Lord Chief Justice, he condemned to death Scrope as well as Norfolk, parading them through the streets of York – the archbishop being made to ride a mule facing its tail.

  The primate, Thomas Arundel, fainted at the news, while men prayed at the tomb of ‘St Richard of York’ in the minster, where miracles were said to be worked. On the evening of the execution, Henry was smitten by ‘leprosy’, screaming that traitors were throwing fire at him while his face and hands were covered by big red pustules – looking ‘ever fouler and fouler’ according to Capgrave.22 Whether venereal, tubercular or an embolism, the disease has not been identified. He soon made a temporary recovery.

  The crisis of the reign

  England already thought devilish forces were working against Henry IV: when his army was routed by bad weather in Wales in 1401, people had attributed it to ‘the evil arts of Franciscan friars’ who had ‘forged links with demons’.23 They also suspected Glyndwr of being a warlock who called up evil spirits. After Scrope’s killing, they decided that God had turned against the king. His forces went on losing ground in Wales, where a French force landed in 1405. The next year, Owain was joined by Northumberland and Lord Bardolf. By 1406 Wales was virtually independent, Bordeaux and Calais were threatened, English shipping went in peril of French or Castilian privateers and there were raids on the south coast.

  The ‘long parliament’ that met in March 1406 sat for 130 days, with a first all-night sitting by the Commons. It was highly critical of the king, grumbling that he was squandering his revenue, and failing to protect the sea route to Gascony and the south coast. But at the end of April Henry fell ill again and in June he nearly died. His illness affected relations with parliament. In establishing his regime he had spent too much on rewarding those who served him to ensure their loyalty, and ‘put political necessity before sound finances’.24 Admittedly, there had been no other choice if he hoped to survive. By 1406, however, it was possible to strike a balance.

  Before parliament dissolved at the end of the year, the Commons forced Henry to accept thirty-one articles. The most radical obliged him to spend two days a week with his council (purged of members whom the Commons disliked), on business and dealing with petitions, while the council would control his expenditure, particularly on the royal household. Yet far from seizing control, the Commons were rallying to the support of a broken man, whose son was too young to fill his place. Their reaction has been described as ‘medieval constitutionalism at its best’.25

  During the late summer and early autumn Henry went from shrine to shrine in a litter, seeking relics that might heal him. They included the cup of St Edmund at Bury St Edmunds, Becket’s comb at Thetford, the famous collections at St Albans and Walsingham and King Oswald’s bones at Bardney Abbey, a few miles from Lincoln. At Bardney he kissed the relics, after which he spent an afternoon reading in the monks’ library.26 The pilgrimage was combined with a visit to Lynn, to say goodbye to his twelve-year-old daughter Philippa, who was leaving for Denmark to marry King Eric VII.

  If he never recovered his health, Henry survived the crisis years of his reign; for in 1406 the strategic situation of the English in Wales began to improve when the French went home. Prince Henry demoralized Owain’s men with such atrocities as drowning prisoners, while the castles in English hands deliberately disrupted trade and food supplies to create famine. Troops from Ireland overran Anglesey, so that Welsh troops who took refuge in Snowdonia starved. One by one, Owain’s strongholds fell. His defeat became obvious when Harlech surrendered in February 1409 –
Sir Edmund Mortimer dying during the siege. When proclamations were posted on the doors of St Paul’s announcing that King Richard was about to reclaim his kingdom, no one took any notice.

  Victory

  Early in 1408, accompanied by his friend Lord Bardolf, Northumberland invaded northern England in Richard II’s name, but their tiny army, which consisted of Percy retainers and a few Scots, was defeated by the Sheriff of Yorkshire, Sir Thomas Rokeby, at Bramham Moor near Tadcaster on 19 February, during a snowstorm. Northumberland fell in battle while Bardolf died of his wounds, the old earl’s head being stuck on a pike and displayed on London Bridge – admired for its handsome face and silver hair.27

  Not only did Bramham Moor end the Percy threat, but the Welsh lost their sole remaining allies. Owain’s last raids were beaten off in 1410, after which he vanished into his woods and caves. Moreover, the murder of the Duke of Orléans by the Duke of Burgundy the next year began a feud that fatally divided, into Armagnacs and Burgundians, a France already weakened by the insanity of Charles VI (who believed he was made of glass and might shatter).

  A broken man

  On the third anniversary of Scrope’s execution in 1408, Henry suffered so severe a stroke that he was thought to be dead, becoming a chronic invalid who had difficulty walking. Adam of Usk says he was tormented by ‘festering of the flesh [ulcers?], dehydration of the eyes and rupturing of internal organs’.28 Sometimes he could not speak. He made his will in January 1409 (in English), and when he speaks of ‘my sinful soul which has never been worthy to be man but through [God’s] mercy and grace, which life I have misspent’, he is saying that he is being punished for murdering a king and an archbishop.29