by Teresa Cole
In July 1415 Pope Gregory sent representatives, giving them his authority to summon and preside over the council (thereby clarifying its authority), and to tender his resignation. This was immediately accepted, the former pope then being reappointed a cardinal and retiring to live out his days in peace.
Pope Benedict alone stood out against the council. He refused to stand down and was excommunicated, and Sigismund spent some time trying and failing to persuade him to step aside for the good of the Church.
While this was proceeding the council was also addressing the problems of heresy. In early sessions the doctrines of John Wycliffe were condemned once again. He was declared a heretic and it was directed that his remains be dug up and burnt – which sentence was only carried out in 1423, the ashes being thrown into the nearby River Swift. Closer to hand, though, they had a follower of Wycliffe, Jan Hus, a Czech priest and philosopher. He had adopted and preached Wycliffite doctrines at Prague University, at that time in the kingdom of Bohemia, whose king was Wenceslaus, elder brother of Sigismund. Strongly linked with pressure for Czech independence, and encouraged by support from Oxford University, Hus insisted his views were not heretical, and had offered to go to Rome and defend them before Pope Gregory. Now, with a safe-conduct given by Sigismund, he had travelled instead to the council at Constance, expecting an opportunity to speak on the reform of the Church. Once there, however, he defied an order not to say Mass, was arrested and tried for heresy. Despite an eloquent defence of his doctrines, he was found guilty, condemned and burnt to death on 6 July 1415. By some accounts Sigismund was absent when this took place, but certainly the Czech people held him responsible for the death of their leader, and the so-called ‘Hussite Wars’ that followed Sigismund’s accession as King of Bohemia in 1419 were a bloody consequence of this.
By mid-1415 the council had achieved a good deal of what it had set out to do. It would continue for a further three years and have a profound effect on the English nation, but now the mind of Henry V was focussed on a different matter, one which would concern him for the rest of his life. Henry was thinking of France.
5
FRANCE
1413–1415
By the time of Henry V, the histories of England and France had been intertwined for centuries. William the Conqueror, setting out in 1066 to claim the throne of England, was a vassal of the French king and did homage for his Duchy of Normandy. Though there was never any question of his overlord claiming the kingdom he won, as happened later with England and Ireland, still William introduced the English to all things French. The feudal system, the French language and French customs, all became dominant in England, and even, possibly, the suggestion that blunt Anglo-Saxon words were rude and unfit for polite society.
The situation became more complicated under William’s grandson, Henry II. Already count of both Anjou and Maine before he inherited England, by marrying Eleanor of Aquitaine he added that territory as well to his empire. At the height of his power he held almost the whole of western France, considerably more than the French king himself. He could have ridden from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees without leaving his own lands. The fact that he was still theoretically the French king’s vassal was an obvious cause of friction between the two, quite apart from the fact that he had won a large part of his empire by marrying that king’s ex-wife.
Of course, it didn’t last. Henry’s son Richard had no interest in the empire except as a source of money for his crusading in the Holy Land. His brother John, who succeeded him, was inept, and John’s son, Henry III, inherited what was left at the age of nine. Normandy itself was lost in 1204, and by 1229 there remained only Guienne and Gascony, part of his grandmother’s Aquitaine, for which Henry was required to do homage to Louis of France.
The French kings were due their own problems, however, and they came in the form of Louis’s grandson, Philippe IV. Philippe, always short of money, hit on the plan of seizing the wealth of the Order of Knights Templar. These former crusader knights had amassed great treasure, and since they had retired to Europe all manner of stories had grown up about their secretive and possibly occult practices. Whether these were true or not, they gave Philippe an excuse to act. In a single night he descended on the Templars, seized their property and arrested every one of them. Then, by means of torture, they were induced to confess to heresies and gross sins and were put to death. In March 1314 Jacque de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Templars, was burnt to death beside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. In the depths of his suffering, so the story goes, he called down a curse on Philippe and on his descendants to the thirteenth generation. In particular, both Philippe and the Pope, who had supported his attack on the Templars, would be dead within a year.
Whether due to the curse or otherwise, it is a fact that Philippe died in a hunting accident eight months later at the age of forty-six. Two years later his son, Louis X, also died in rather mysterious circumstances, apparently after drinking cooled wine following a strenuous game of tennis. (He is, incidentally, the first named tennis player in history, having had indoor courts constructed especially for him.) He was aged twenty-seven, and his son, John I, was not born until five months after his father’s death. John I lived and reigned for five short days. Passing over his sister, Jeanne, then aged four, the crown went next to Philippe’s second son, Philippe V, who lasted six years until he too died, at the age of thirty leaving only daughters. His brother, Charles IV, also reigned for six years and also left only daughters.
In the space of fourteen years, then, the last direct male descendants of the Capetian line, stretching back to AD 957, were wiped out, leaving behind them an empty throne and a problem of succession France had not faced for nearly four hundred years.
There were three possible candidates. Probably the closest in line was Jeanne, daughter of Louis X, now grown up and married to the King of Navarre. Another possibility was Philippe de Valois, cousin of the last king and nephew of Philippe IV. And then there was Edward III of England. He was a grandson of Philippe IV, his mother being Philippe’s daughter Isabelle.
By direct descent the choice would be between Jeanne and Edward, but Navarre and England were equally unacceptable to the French. Philippe de Valois was duly crowned Philippe VI, the first in the line of kings from the house of Valois.
At the time Edward was in no position to argue. He had come to the throne at the age of fifteen only the year before, following the death of his father at Berkeley Castle. Nor was he on good terms with his French mother, who, by popular repute, had caused that death, along with her lover, Mortimer.
In 1329 he performed a homage of sorts to Philippe for his lands in France. By one account he knelt and said the words but did not put his hands between Philippe’s hands, as the ritual demanded. In another he came wearing a sword instead of appearing unarmed and bare headed. Soon it became clear that there would be trouble between them. Philippe wanted Aquitaine, while Edward wanted, at the least, to be free of his overlord.
By 1337 Edward was firmly in control of his kingdom and had reasons aplenty for challenging Philippe, who was not only harassing the English lands in France but also creating problems for the wool trade with Flanders. In that year Philippe accused Edward of harbouring his enemies and not behaving as a vassal should. He proposed to confiscate Guienne. Edward’s immediate response was to declare that he would have not only Guienne but France itself. The so-called Hundred Years War was underway.
Initial victories went to England. In June 1340 the French fleet was destroyed at the Battle of Sluys off the coast of Flanders. The French lost 190 ships and some 18,000 men. Though this gave the English the upper hand in the Channel and dispelled any threat of a French invasion, it did not entirely clear the seaways. The French called on Portuguese, Spanish and Mediterranean ships for assistance and raiding and harassment of English merchant ships continued, though on a lesser scale.
It was the presence of a Mediterranean fleet off the south-west coast of Franc
e in 1346 that led Edward to launch his forces instead against Normandy, this being in retaliation for Philippe’s attack on Guienne the year before. With some 4,000 knights and 10,000 English and Welsh archers, his aim was to make a grand chevauchée – a great raid for plunder and prestige – rather than an actual invasion. Faced by such forces Normandy fell without a fight, and, loaded down with loot, Edward was making for Flanders and home when confronted at a place called Crécy, with French forces determined on battle.
Philippe, with superior though undisciplined numbers, launched a traditional mounted attack which Edward countered by deploying his archers. In the event the French force was cut to pieces and the English victory decisive. The following year Edward, ignoring Philippe’s chivalrous invitation to a set battle on equal terms, besieged and took the port of Calais.
The Black Death then intervened, carrying off between a third and a half of the population of each country, but afterwards in 1355 the war resumed in similar fashion. By this time there was a new French king, John II, and the English campaign was led by Edward’s son, also Edward, known as the Black Prince. The result was the same. At Poitiers in 1356 the French army was overwhelmingly defeated by the English and Welsh archers. Worse, the French king was taken prisoner, and though it took some time to remove him to England it seems that no attempt was made to rescue him.
With such a catch it might have been thought that Edward would press ever harder his apparent claim to the French throne. Instead, in the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360, he settled for much less. In return for renouncing his claim to the throne and to Normandy, Maine and Anjou, he was to have full sovereignty over a large chunk of the south-west of France amounting to almost a third of the country and comprising Guienne, Gascony, Poitou, Limousin and other territories, as well as the most useful channel port of Calais. In addition, a sum of three million gold crowns was fixed as the ransom for King John.
In general the treaty aimed to clear up the feudal anomalies between the two kings and to concentrate the English territories in one area. However, when the treaty came to be ratified by the kings and their sons in the Treaty of Calais later that year, the all-important clauses relating to the English king’s perpetual sovereignty over his lands were taken out and put in a separate document which was never formally ratified.
The honour of King John was not in doubt. Not for nothing was he known as John the Good. When the first part of his ransom was paid he was released from custody and other hostages took his place. One of these, his second son Louis, subsequently escaped and returned to France. Mortified at the dishonour of this action, John insisted on returning to England to resume his captivity. We are told he was met with parades and celebrations, but sadly he fell ill soon after and died the following year.
His son Charles V was a different proposition. The first French heir to bear the title ‘Dauphin’, he had already had a brief taste of the limelight as Regent of France during his father’s captivity. Though physically frail he was shrewd, prepared to listen to advice and a good judge of men. When the war resumed in 1369, each side blaming the other, he rapidly reconquered all the land ceded to England with the exception of Calais and Gascony.
Both sides were set for a change, however. Edward and Charles died within three years of each other, and each was succeeded by a twelve-year-old heir: Richard II in England and Charles VI in France. For a time neither was in a position to continue the struggle with any vigour, and when they grew to maturity both were in favour of a succession of truces and attempts to settle the whole issue. The last such truce was sealed by the marriage of Richard to Isabelle, the six-year-old daughter of the French king. By this time, however, Charles had already been struck by the intermittent madness that was to blight the rest of his life.
In August 1392, while on his way to Brittany under a hot sun, the king was approached by a wild man, some say a leper, who seized his bridle and warned him of enemies plotting his doom. Though forced away by the king’s men, he apparently followed for some time, still shouting his warnings. Shortly afterwards a page in the king’s train dropped a lance that struck against a helmet as it fell, with a ringing noise. Instantly the king drew his sword and attacked his own attendants, killing four before he could be restrained. When taken from his horse he fell into a coma lasting two days, and when he awoke was appalled to hear what he had done. For a while he seemed to recover but then the madness struck again the following year, and then again and again, becoming more frequent, and generally worse in the summer than in winter. At times he would rush violently about until exhausted, attacking anyone who approached. On other occasions, especially later on, he suffered from a delusion that he was made of glass and would break if anyone touched him. He denied his wife and children, his kingship and even his name. Then the fit would pass, maybe after several months, and he would appear sane again, but listless and prepared to do whatever the person advising him suggested.
In the circumstances a council was appointed to govern the country when Charles was incapable. Presided over by his wife, Isabeau of Bavaria, it initially summoned back to power the king’s uncles, who had already served as regents for an extended period before he attained the age of twenty-one. Unfortunately for France they had shown before that they had more interest in their own advancement than in the good of the country. Taxes had been raised and the treasury plundered, and now once again there was to be intense competition to control the king and the government of France.
At first Philippe of Burgundy held sway, his aim being to increase the power of his dukedom along the eastern border of France. When he died in 1404 his son, John, known as the Fearless, pursued an even more aggressive policy of personal advancement. By this time, however, he had a serious rival in the form of the king’s brother, Louis of Orleans, who had worked his way into Queen Isabeau’s affections, and some say into her bed as well.
It was this Louis who, on the usurpation of the English throne by Henry IV, twice challenged the king to a personal duel. Though Henry might ignore this, he could not prevent Louis and his allies from attacking and seizing large portions of Gascony, leaving England with only a narrow strip of land around the towns of Bordeaux and Bayonne. Nor could he prevent the alliance between France and Owen Glendower in 1405 that took the French army across Wales to within sight of the city of Worcester.
A further opportunity arose for Louis to cement his position at the centre of power when Henry reluctantly returned the widow of Richard II. Isabelle, daughter of Charles VI, was now married for the second time at the age of sixteen, her bridegroom being Louis’s son Charles. In fact the marriage was short-lived as she was to die in childbirth a few years later in 1409.
John the Fearless struck back by marrying his daughter to the Dauphin, Louis, but he was still behind on influence when, losing patience with political manoeuvring, and also with the efforts of the Duke of Berry to reconcile the two rivals, he had Louis of Orleans blatantly murdered in the streets of Paris in 1407. Not only did he admit to this crime but he even had sermons preached to justify what he had done. His verbal evidence to the royal court took the following form: ‘It is permissible to kill a tyrant. The Duke of Orleans was a tyrant. Therefore the Duke of Burgundy did well to kill him.’
Young Charles of Orleans was thirteen years old when his father was killed and in no position to avenge him. Following the death of Isabelle, though, he married Bonne, daughter of Count Bernard of Armagnac, and Bernard at once took up the Orleanist cause. An anti-Burgundian alliance was put together, known as the Armagnac party and featuring the counts of Armagnac, Alençon and Clermont, and the dukes of Berry, Bourbon and Brittany. A blockade of Paris was set up to dislodge John the Fearless and it was at this point that both sides began appealing to England for help.
As we have seen, that appeal led to the bizarre result of two separate English expeditions being dispatched, one supporting Burgundy and the other Armagnac. Both sides offered marriages for the Prince of Wales. Both offered advantages to
England: aid for English wool interests in Flanders, and help in regaining territories in France by the Burgundians; full restoration of those territories in perpetual sovereignty by the Armagnacs. The fact that the Armagnac party largely consisted of just those people who had annexed the English territories in the first place may be one reason for Prince Henry to favour the Burgundians, while the promise to restore them without cost to himself may have swayed his father towards the Armagnacs.
The second expedition was still straggling homeward at the death of Henry IV, but each had shown the new king just how weak and divided was the French kingdom at the time. The tangled history of the two lands up to this point has led one writer to declare, ‘Either the same crown must unite the two kingdoms, or a bold stroke must sever the bond.’ There was never a doubt in the mind of Henry V as to which it would be.
Nevertheless there was still some way to go before war could be declared, though it seems that Henry began at once to prepare for that outcome. He was equally happy to see what diplomacy could achieve first, and more than happy to negotiate with both sides at once.
The situation in France in the spring of 1413 was changing on an almost daily basis. Despite the setback for the Armagnacs following the Earl of Arundel’s intervention, John the Fearless was beginning to lose his grip on the Dauphin Louis, who was now sixteen years old and starting to show a mind of his own. Perhaps because of this, a riot was incited in Paris where there was strong sympathy for the Burgundian cause. Led by Simon Caboche, a butcher in the pay of Burgundy, a mob burst into the Dauphin’s palace, murdered his servants and seized control of first the Dauphin and then his parents. The household and government was then purged of Armagnac supporters and these were replaced with Burgundians.