by Teresa Cole
The accounts of this killing are as confused as the incident itself. There is a suggestion that as the duke rose he put his hand on his sword, perhaps because it was in the way, and that in that extremely tense atmosphere this was interpreted as an imminent danger to the Dauphin. Others have accused Tanneguy du Chatel of plotting the whole thing so as to prolong a war which was personally profitable to him and to his fellow mercenary captains. Be that as it may, at the time is was seen as a deliberate murder, and the whole alliance and meeting just an elaborate plot by the Dauphin to kill the hated Burgundian leader. There is some evidence that in fact the Dauphin took some time to get over the shock of the murder, but to his contemporaries he was the villain of the piece, and all the repercussions that followed were blamed on him.
It was certainly a game changer. A century later the prior of the Charterhouse at Dijon, showing off the damaged skull of John of Burgundy, is reputed to have declared, ‘This is the hole through which the English made their way into France.’ When next Henry’s ambassadors met with the French king’s council in Paris on 27 September, his demands had altered considerably. With the Dauphin effectively out of the equation due to his reputed involvement in the murder, Henry now proposed to take both the crown and the kingdom. He would marry Katherine without a dowry, since she would bring all of France with her, and he and his heirs would be acknowledged as the rightful heirs to France. He promised, however, that his two kingdoms would be kept deliberately separate, each with its own laws, customs and administrations. When it was protested that he had previously been prepared to settle for a good deal less, the reply was simply that circumstances had changed.
To turn this proposal into fact Henry had to convince four separate groups: the French court, and in particular Queen Isabeau; the Burgundians under their new duke, Philippe; the Parisians; and the English. Of these the last two were the easiest. To the Parisians, with Henry camped on their doorstep and exerting a stranglehold on their trade and their very lives, it was obvious that he would get what he wanted one way or another. If it could be done peacefully, so much the better.
The English themselves were beginning to feel the effects of the prolonged war effort. The year 1419 was the first in which there was no large contingent of new troops recruited for service in France, and in the parliament that assembled in mid-October concern was expressed about the amount of coin that was being sent out of the realm to pay for the ongoing hostilities. It was proposed that wool be sent instead, which could then be sold to raise the necessary money. Serving soldiers, too, were beginning to express a hope that there might soon be peace so that they could all go home.
It is often said that the twenty-three-year-old Philippe of Burgundy immediately threw his support behind Henry, but in fact the process was not quite so instant. Following a meeting of his representatives with those of the English king in early October, it was made clear to him that if he did not enter an alliance with Henry, negotiations might be opened instead with the Dauphin. To help persuade him, though, it was emphasised that there was no question of deposing Charles VI, which would be treason on the part of Philippe. In fact, it was said, France would be stronger and more united under Henry, who in addition promised to join with the new duke to avenge the murder of his father.
Philippe called a meeting of all his advisers at Arras but the options were clear. Under no circumstances could he support the Dauphin Charles, and Henry’s proposal was the only real alternative. In early November his decision was delivered to the Earl of Warwick, the English envoy at Arras, and on 24 December a general truce was announced between France and England.
Immediately the blockade of Paris was lifted and work began to turn this general agreement on principle into a workable treaty. A known and trusted envoy, Louis Robesart, was sent from Henry to the French court, now in Troyes, to persuade Queen Isabeau to accept the English king as both son-in-law and heir. Once again accounts differ as to her reaction. In some she had already disinherited her son Charles, even declaring that he was not the true son of Charles VI. According to this version she bore him a bitter hatred, blaming him for the death of the young courtier drowned in the Seine, and for the seizure of her treasures when she had been exiled by Bernard of Armagnac. In other accounts she was more reluctant to take the dramatic step proposed. In general the chronicles are not kind to Isabeau, accusing her of extravagance, flightiness and promiscuity, though how much of this may be propaganda for the various competing factions trying to obtain control of her husband and son is not at all clear.
Whichever version is true, Robesart did his job well. On 23 March 1420 Duke Philippe of Burgundy arrived at Troyes. On 9 April an agreed text for a treaty was sent to Henry, now at Pontoise. Amendments were made and agreed on 5 May, and soon after Henry set out for Troyes, bypassing Paris on the way, to arrive on the 20th of that month.
The following day, amid much ceremony, the treaty was signed and sealed in the cathedral of St Peter at Troyes. Once again Charles VI was too ill to attend, and in his absence it was signed by Queen Isabeau, who thus added to her crimes in the eyes of many Frenchmen by giving away the country to the English. In a neat touch, Henry sealed the treaty with the seal used by Edward III on the Treaty of Brétigny.
It was the conclusion of five years’ hard effort and was the high point of his reign.
11
THE LAST CAMPAIGN
1420–1422
The Treaty of Troyes was very much an echo of the proposals put forward by the English the previous autumn. It provided specifically for the marriage of Henry and Katherine (who were formally betrothed immediately after the signing) and for the disinheritance ‘for his enormous crimes’ of Charles ‘who calls himself Dauphin’. The English king was to rule as regent for Charles VI in his lifetime, and after his death Henry and his heirs would inherit the throne in right succession. In the meantime he would drop the title ‘King of France’ and be known as ‘Regent and Heir of France’. It was also made clear that there would be no change to the laws and institutions of France. Henry would be advised by a council of the French and would govern with the three estates of France, the parlement of Paris having supreme legal authority.
Not only was this treaty signed by the principals on behalf of France, Burgundy and England, but all French nobility, town officials and senior clergy were required to swear an oath to accept it, this order being issued in the name of Charles VI. It sounded like a full and final peace settlement but of course it was no such thing.
France in fact was as divided as before. Those ‘in the obedience of Charles VI’ would be governed by the treaty but all the lands south of the Loire remained loyal to the Dauphin. Even closer to Paris, particularly in fortresses along the Seine and the Marne, pockets of resistance held out on his behalf. Nor was it entirely plain sailing within ‘the obedience’. Though the rank and file of the clergy were in general happy to accept the new arrangements – particularly as Henry was offering them special protection and privileges – a number of bishops refused at first to take the required oath, and the Bishop of Paris in particular was vocal against the treaty. Among the Burgundians, too, there was a measure of dissent. Some towns and nobles needed a personal visit from their new duke to persuade them to swear the oath, while the Prince of Orange flatly refused to do so and took his men away home.
Others were prepared to argue the niceties of the case. The right to the crown could not pass through a woman, and even if it could, how could it be transmitted through Katherine who still had two elder sisters and a brother living? The matter was even debated in the papal court and, despite the debt he owed to the English who had secured his election, Martin V never did accept the treaty.
The Dauphin’s response was more blunt. In 1421 he issued a Manifesto Against the Treaty of Troyes containing a long list of reasons to oppose it. The crown belonged rightly to King Charles and to the Dauphin and should not be given away to strangers and ancient enemies. The honour and crown of France should be g
uarded by faithful and loyal subjects who should bear any pain to guard the honour of the fleur-de-lis and the crown. Giving away the crown was treason and would lead to eternal damnation. The ‘damnable’ treaty, full of ‘malignity and fraud and deception’, must be resisted by every good citizen, ‘especially by the Pope, the prelates and the princes, by peers, notables and citizens and all who hate tyranny and uphold virtue and freedom’. Whatever others may have hoped for, the Dauphin was not going to take his disinheritance as final.
In the meantime on Trinity Sunday, 2 June 1420, Henry V of England married Katherine of France at Troyes. No doubt this came as something of a relief to his subjects on both sides of the Channel. He was in his mid-thirties, constantly engaged in perilous pursuits, and it was high time he produced an heir. At the time his heir apparent was his brother Thomas, Duke of Clarence, who had been married for some time but still had no legitimate child. (His illegitimate son John was with him in France.) Neither of his younger brothers had yet married, though under the terms of the treaty one was due to marry the sister of Philippe of Burgundy.
Henry’s wedding seems to have been a fairly simple affair – it has been described as a soldier’s wedding – attended by the English nobility in all their richest finery but by few of the French. The Duke of Burgundy in full mourning black must have struck a sombre note. As was usual at the time, the household appointed for the new eighteen-year-old queen was made up largely of the subjects of her new husband, with just a few French ladies-in-waiting. It was to be some time, however, before she had finally to leave her parents and native land to travel to England.
Only two days after the wedding Henry and his fellow army commanders left Troyes to continue with their unfinished business. Their immediate targets were the three Dauphinist strongholds, Sens, Montereau and Melun, spread along the River Seine to the south of Paris. Sens, the first to be attacked, offered very little resistance, and in fact its downfall was more like a social occasion for the royal party with both kings and both queens in attendance.
The whole group then moved on to Montereau, a place of particular significance for Philippe of Burgundy as the site of his father’s murder. Although more resistance was found here the town fell on 23 June and the castle on 1 July. The body of John the Fearless was then exhumed from its hasty grave, sealed in a lead-lined coffin and taken away to Dijon by the new duke for a proper burial.
Though Philippe had gone the bulk of his men remained with Henry, who now moved on northwards to Melun, one of the closest of the Dauphin’s fortresses to Paris. This town, commanded by Sire de Barbazon, one of the leading Dauphinist officers, was not going to give in without a struggle. The siege began around 9 July and has been described as one of the hardest of Henry’s career. Some of the fiercest fighting took place underground in the mines and countermines dug to bring down the walls of the town. As we have seen, fighting in mines was seen as the height of honourable combat, the added danger making the fighters ‘brothers in arms’ under the code of chivalry. One particular encounter was to save the life of Sire de Barbazon. Coming up against a particularly strong and able opponent he asked his name, only to be informed he was fighting the King of England himself. Immediately he withdrew, and later, when the town surrendered on 18 November and his life was forfeit, he could rightly claim that the king was his brother in arms and thus that he should be spared. This was duly granted but he was then to spend the next ten years as a prisoner.
Melun held out for some eighteen weeks on the expectation that the Dauphin, who by now had assembled a large army, would be marching to their relief. In fact although always about to set out he never came, thereby remaining safely out of reach of the combined armies of England and Burgundy, which were sitting outside the town and hoping for a decisive battle.
The terms of surrender were not as generous as usual. Whether this was because Henry was for the first time outside ‘his’ duchy of Normandy, or because he wanted to impress the French, or simply that he was annoyed the siege had lasted so long, we don’t know. For whatever reason those who were to be ransomed were held prisoner until they actually produced the money, and there was an unusual number of hangings.
Among the latter was a group of Scottish prisoners. The previous year the Dauphin had appealed to Scotland to renew the old alliance and a force of Scottish soldiers had been sent under the command of John Stewart, Earl of Buchan. Some of these formed part of the garrison at Melun, and despite Henry producing their king, the by now twenty-five-year-old James, to order them to surrender, they had refused to do so. On slim or non-existent grounds Henry now decided to treat them as rebels and a number were executed.
With the way to Paris now cleared, Henry finally made his entrance into that city on 1 December 1420. Beside him rode the King of France, joyfully greeted by his subjects, while, behind, the strength of the new regime was amply demonstrated by Philippe of Burgundy, the dukes of Clarence, Bedford and Exeter, the earls of Warwick, Huntingdon and Salisbury, and many other notables. ‘No princes were ever welcomed more joyfully,’ wrote an eyewitness. The following day a similar welcome greeted queens Isabeau and Katherine and their entourage.
On 6 December the estates general of France, clergy, lords and commons (or at least those of them within ‘the obedience’) assembled to debate the treaty. Charles VI appeared in person to address them and urge them to ratify it, which they duly did. Then, just before Christmas, the Duke of Burgundy and other members of his family made a formal accusation against the Dauphin and some of his chief officers. Before a ‘lit de justice’ – a solemn meeting of the parlement of Paris – they were accused of the murder of John the Fearless. Needless to say they did not appear to contest the charges and in their absence were found guilty of treason against the honour of the King of France.
Christmas was celebrated in Paris, with the English king and queen holding court at the palace of the Louvre and the French in the lesser surroundings of the Hotel St Pol. There was some muttering about this on the part of those still suspicious of the treaty arrangements. The English were treating the French king shabbily and not giving him the honour that was his due. Nor did everyone take to Henry as the English had. He was thought to be cold and aloof and his plain speaking did not impress. One complained that he had only two answers to any matter that was put to him: ‘It cannot be done’ or ‘It must be done’.
Immediately after Christmas Henry made arrangements to set out for home. He had been away nearly three and a half years and an anxious English parliament held earlier in December had urged his early return. Leaving the Duke of Exeter as Captain of Paris with charge over the French king, he initially spent nearly a month at Rouen putting the administration of the duchy of Normandy on a firm footing. Then, accompanied by his queen, by his brother Bedford, Bishop Henry Beaufort, the Scottish King James and the earls of Warwick and March, he set out northward for Calais. Clarence was left in France as his lieutenant, and to assist him he had some of Henry’s most seasoned commanders, the earls of Salisbury and of Huntingdon and other most experienced men.
On 2 February Henry and his party landed at Dover to the delight of his English subjects. Once again their king had returned triumphant, and once again his mere presence in the realm immediately silenced all those who had been complaining about the length of the war and the drain on the country’s resources.
Three weeks later Katherine was crowned Queen of England by Archbishop Chichele in Westminster Abbey. The king had no part in the service and there is no record of him attending. Nor was he present at the grand banquet that followed, where it was King James of Scotland who sat beside the queen. A charitable view might be that Henry didn’t want his presence to overshadow his wife on her big day.
Even before that day the king had once more taken into his own hands the reins of government, meeting with his chancellor among others on 18 February. The Bishop of Durham, Thomas Langley, had replaced Bishop Henry Beaufort in the post in 1417. A safe pair of hands, he had alr
eady served as chancellor under Henry IV and devoted the best part of twenty years to royal service. In fact the arrangements Henry had made for his kingdom before he left in 1417 had worked so well there had been very little to ruffle the calm in his absence.
In October of that year the so-called ‘Foul Raid’ of Scots upon the north of England had taken place, led by Archibald Douglas and aiming to take the castle of Roxburgh and attack Berwick. They retreated rapidly, however, when John of Bedford approached with an army rapidly assembled from local levies, though they caused devastation in the places they passed through on their way home.
In November 1417 Sir John Oldcastle had finally been captured near Welshpool in the Welsh marches. Severely wounded, he was carried to London in a litter and appeared before Parliament on 14 December. His defiant speeches did little to help him and he was condemned out of his own mouth as a traitor and heretic, being sentenced to punishment for both. According to a contemporary account he was then dragged to St Giles’s Fields on a hurdle, hanged with an iron chain around his neck and simultaneously burnt in a raging fire.
Now a parliament was summoned to assemble in May and in the meantime Henry set off on a tour of his kingdom. Part pilgrimage, part money raiser, it was also felt appropriate that the king should show himself to his subjects after so long an absence. Beginning in Bristol he travelled northward through Hereford and Shrewsbury, then across the Midlands to Kenilworth, Coventry and Leicester where his wife joined him. They celebrated Easter there on 23 March and then continued on through Nottingham and Pontefract to York.
It was while Henry was visiting a holy shrine at Beverley that news was brought to him of a catastrophe in France. For the first time the English had lost a battle against a force of French and Scots – and worse still, in that same battle his brother Thomas, Duke of Clarence, had lost his life.
As king’s lieutenant in France Clarence had no doubt been following instructions to press southward against the frontier with the Dauphin. One account suggests he was conducting an old-fashioned chevauchée and collecting considerable plunder along the way. Another says he was pursuing the forces of the Dauphin, trying to bring them to a decisive battle. He certainly succeeded in that.