1415: Henry V's Year of Glory (11 page)

The meeting was a trap. The cardinals soon departed, praising Hus’s honest intentions, but leaving him in the palace, which was surrounded by armed guards. John of Chlum left Hus and went to Pope John to accuse him of breaking his oath not to permit any interference with Hus in Constance. But in so doing he achieved nothing but to separate himself physically from Hus, who remained under guard in the palace. A supporter, Peter of Mladoňovice, was able to take Hus his fur coat and breviary that evening – 28 November 1414 – but that same night Hus was moved to a cardinal’s house, and after eight days he was sent to the Dominican monastery situated on an island in the Rhine, and chained up in a round tower there, ‘in a murky and dark dungeon in the immediate vicinity of a latrine’.
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Although John of Chlum petitioned the emperor for Hus’s release, in line with the imperial safe conduct he had been granted, Hus remained in his dungeon.
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But over the course of December 1414, the fumes from the latrine did their work, and he fell ill. He ended up vomiting repeatedly and violently, and suffering from a fever. So grave did his situation appear that his gaoler feared for his life. Worried about accusations of murder if he should die, the pope ordered that he be removed from the dungeon. Today, 10 January, he was moved elsewhere within the monastery – to a cell near the refectory.
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Thursday 17th

In trying to ascertain what actually happened in the distant past, account books can be hugely valuable. Chroniclers were often ill-informed, distant, biased, or writing years after the events, sometimes on the basis of misinformation. Similarly, letters from lords are often written in such a way as to conceal intentions rather than reveal them. Even royal letters can be unhelpful; important information was frequently conveyed by word of mouth. But account books were normally drawn up without bias. They were also subject to verification at the time, and often contain lengthy explanations of what the money was used for.

Sadly, 1415 is one of the most poorly represented years in all late medieval English royal accounting. No regular household accounts survive. Nor do any chamberlain’s accounts. Even the great wardrobe accounts are short on entries for 1415 (with the notable exception of expenses for the Agincourt campaign). We are left with a very few series of documents from which to determine what the king spent his money on in the early months of 1415. The Issue Rolls are one of our best extant sources.

The first series of payments recorded on the Issue Rolls for 1415 are those dated 17 January.
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Henry paid his almoner £100 for this term (a period of six months) to make donations on feast days and to distribute 4s per day among the poor. This was a traditional engagement of every monarch, and did not necessarily indicate remarkable piety or generosity.
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Other spiritual and charitable donations included the payment of 25 marks (£16 13s 4d) to the house of Dominican friars at Canterbury, 25 marks to the Franciscan house at Canterbury, £20 to the Dominicans at London, and 25 marks to the Dominicans at Oxford.

There was a payment of £312 10s made to Sir John Neville, custodian of Carlisle, so he could pay the wages of the men defending the West March against the incursions of the Scots. The duke of York was paid for keeping the town and castle of Berwick and paying the wages of the men guarding the East March (£423 0s 6d). Similar payments were made for the sustenance of Calais. Other payments were of an administrative nature – sending out messengers and letters, for example, to the earl of Arundel (the treasurer), and to
the sheriffs of the various counties. The poet Thomas Hoccleve, who worked as an exchequer clerk by day, was reimbursed 26s 8d for red wax obtained by him for the use of the privy seal. A payment was made to Henry’s chamber of 2,000 marks (£1,333 6s 8d), and another of £100; these sums were effectively his personal spending money.

The most interesting items concern Henry’s military preparations. A payment of £460 was made for a barge from Brittany called the
Katherine of Guérande
. There was a part payment of £28 owing to a Master William the Gunner for a cannon, paid by agreement with the king himself. Henry also paid £5 13s 4d to William Woodward, the founder, for gunpowder. Although these sums are not large, they alert us to what Henry was doing in the days which are otherwise not recorded above. He was building up his military supplies, as he had been doing since his accession.

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This same day, in the city of Constance, a papal notary in the service of John XXIII drew up two documents in favour of Edmund Mortimer, earl of March. One of them was relatively innocuous: written permission for Mortimer to separate the alien priory of Stoke Clare from its Norman mother church and to turn it into a secular college under his direct patronage, thereby saving its estates from being confiscated by the king. The second document was anything but innocuous. It gave him official permission to marry one of his second cousins. Although it did not name her, the woman in question was Anne Stafford, daughter of the earl of Stafford.
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As mentioned above, Edmund Mortimer was the great-great-grandson of Edward III through Lionel, Edward III’s second son (whereas Henry V was descended from Edward III’s fourth son). Edmund therefore had a claim to the throne of England which was arguably stronger than Henry’s own. He was also the rightful English claimant to the title of ‘King of France’. Far from benefiting from his illustrious birth, however, Edmund had spent over half his lifetime in prison, confined and guarded by order of Henry’s father. Edmund thus had both the reason and the dynastic right to be a thorn in Henry’s side.

It goes without saying that Edmund was likely to be unhappy at the way his family had been treated by the Lancastrians. But the reality
was even worse, for Edmund’s maternal uncle had been the duke of Surrey, who had lost his life during the Epiphany Rising. Edmund and his younger brother, Roger, had subsequently been kept in close custody at Windsor Castle. After an unsuccessful attempt by Lady Despenser to free them in 1405, the Mortimer boys were guarded even more closely by Sir John Pelham at Pevensey Castle. Things improved for them in 1409 – after ten years of custody – when Henry IV transferred them to Prince Henry’s own protection. This was an inspired move, for it made the eighteen-year-old Edmund dependent on his future king. When Henry succeeded to the throne he released the Mortimer boys, and knighted them.
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But was this enough to secure Edmund’s loyalty? Henry was not sure. In November 1413 he had forced Edmund to seal a recognisance that he would remain loyal, or forfeit the huge sum of 10,000 marks (£6,666 13s 4d).

As the Mortimer claimant to the throne of England, and the rightful heir to the English claim on the throne of France, Edmund’s marriage had always been of great interest to Henry. At the time of his release, when he had still been underage, it was clearly stipulated that Edmund should not marry without the king’s permission. Even though he had now reached adulthood, he must have known that his marriage to Anne Stafford, another descendant of Edward III, would make the king angry. But for the moment no one knew about it. It was just a piece of routine business being conducted by a stranger on the far side of Europe.

Saturday 19th

In his cell near the refectory of the monastery, Jan Hus wrote letters to his supporters and friends in Bohemia:

I entreat you, lying in prison – of which I am not ashamed, for I suffer in hope for the Lord God’s sake – to beseech the Lord God for me that He may remain with me. He has mercifully visited me with a grave illness and again healed me. He has permitted my very determined enemies to attack me – men to whom I had done much good and whom I had loved sincerely. In Him alone I hope and in your prayer, that He will grant me to remain steadfast in His grace unto death. Should He be pleased to take me to Himself now, let His holy will be done; but should He be pleased to return me, likewise let His holy will be done. Surely I have need of great help; yet I know that He will not allow me to bear any suffering or temptation except for my and your benefit, so that being tested and remaining steadfast, we may obtain our great reward.
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In writing this, Hus revealed that, even though he had come voluntarily to Constance, he knew he might die there. At the same time he clung to the idea that he might yet return to Prague. But things were changing rapidly. Very shortly after writing this letter he sent another to John of Chlum saying that, if the above letter had not yet been sent, ‘hide it and do not send it, for it may cause harm’. He went on to say in the same letter

I also pray, noble and gracious Lord John, if a hearing is granted me, that the emperor be present and that I am assigned a place near him, so that he may hear and understand me well. I also particularly beg you that you, and Lord Henry Lacembok and Lord Wenceslas of Dubá, and others if possible, be present, so you may hear what the Lord Jesus Christ, my procurator, advocate and most gracious judge, will have me say – so that whether I live or die, you may be true and proper witnesses, and the liars will not be able to say that I denied the truth that I preached.
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At the end of the letter he added the forlorn plea that, if he was allowed a hearing, he hoped the emperor would prevent him being returned to prison afterwards, so he could take counsel with his friends. He clearly had no idea how much trouble he was in.

Sunday 20th

At Westminster, Henry was attending to his invasion plans. Today he commissioned Henry Beaufort, and the duke of York, Sir Thomas Skelton, Sir John Berkeley and William Brocas to make an enquiry into the loss of income and rights from the royal castle of Southampton. Not all of these men would head off to the south coast; the reason
for including the names of the chancellor and the duke was to give greater authority to the others. It was an emphatic way of ensuring that local officials complied.

Southampton was the location where Henry was concentrating his shipbuilding activities. His great ship the
Holy Ghost
was being refitted there at that moment. Then there was the value of Southampton as a port. There were several places on the south coast from which an army might be transported to France, but none was as convenient as Southampton. Plymouth was the major port for sailing to Gascony, but it was far too remote for most people. London was the most convenient port for the transportation of the stores held at the Tower, but it was not at all suitable to muster a large army in and around the city. Southampton on the other hand was conveniently in the middle of southern England. It had served as the port of embarkation for Edward III’s great expedition of 1346, which Henry seems to have settled on as the blueprint for what he wanted to achieve this year in France. Even better, it was a well-defended, walled town, its defences having been rebuilt by the citizens over the last thirty years. Henry was even planning a gun tower to guard the entrance to the port.
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The adjacent manors were suitable for the encampment of large numbers of men. Royal agents had an established presence in the town. And its mariners were experienced in Channel navigation. It was thus the obvious point from which to launch an invasion. Henry could not allow it to be subject to corrupt officials.

Today also Henry commissioned an esquire in his service, Roger Salvayn, to take ‘two or three ships for the king’s service in the port of Kingston upon Hull, and to equip them with master seamen and mariners’.
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Salvayn was not just an esquire; he was also treasurer of Calais. Ever since the start of his reign Henry had been improving the defences of Calais, repairing the defences, renewing the thatch and shingle roofs of houses with slates and tiles.
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As with Southampton, a commission of enquiry had been set up to eradicate any possibility of fraud in the port. Henry had himself appointed Sir William Lisle to be the military governor of the town as deputy to the earl of Warwick while the latter was away at Constance, and to maintain a strong force of men-at-arms and archers there.
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Henry was already planning to use the town for his forthcoming expedition – as a bolt-hole, at least, if everything went wrong.

Monday 21st

Jacob Cerretano, a papal notary, wrote in his journal for today that, ‘the solemn ambassadors of the king and realm of England … entered Constance with a large and handsome escort’. They were met by Bishop Challant of Lausanne, who was temporarily acting as the bishop of Terouanne; Nicholas of Robertis, master of Pope John’s household; and many other members of the pope’s and the cardinals’ households, who rode out to greet them. Cerretano added, ‘the next day the said ambassadors waited in fine array on our lord Pope John XXIII; and the lord bishop of Salisbury made an eloquent speech on church union, which was praised by all present’.
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Cerretano was not the only observer who was impressed with the English delegation. Ulrich Richental also noted their arrival, although somewhat less accurately than the papal notary.

Two archbishops
[sic]
and one bishop from England rode in, with seven wagons and twenty-two sumpter horses carrying apparel and other things; and forty-two learned clerics, twelve of whom were doctors of theology, and the rest licentiates and doctors of canon law. With them came a princely earl, Richard of Warwick, with three trumpeters and four fifers. The first archbishop
[sic]
, Lord Robert of Salisbury, had sixty-four horses and many men, and he went to the Hof behind the steps, where a gate leads into the cloister, and remained there until his death. The other archbishop
[sic]
… came with sixty-seven horses and many men. He went to the house or inn near St Lawrence, called The House of the Golden Sword, by the city gate, and remained there until he took his departure … The earl of Warwick rode with thirty-eight horses and many men to the house in the upper market called The Painted House, where he remained until he rode out of Constance.
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