1415: Henry V's Year of Glory (21 page)

Wednesday 20th

It was the second anniversary of his father’s death. From tomorrow all official documents would be dated the third year of Henry’s reign. Perhaps his mind went back to his conversation that night, two years earlier, with the hermit in Westminster Abbey, William Alnwick. About this time he decided to ask Alnwick to be the first confessor general in his new monastery at Syon. Alnwick accepted. But within a year Alnwick had had enough of listening to women’s confessions. He preferred the life of a hermit.
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Sigismund was growing suspicious. Several times now he had seen Frederick, duke of Austria, holding quiet conversations with John XXIII. At an appropriate moment he took the duke aside and said what was on his mind. He asked the duke outright if he was going to help the pope escape from Constance. Duke Frederick assured Sigismund that he had no intention of aiding the pope in such a manner – in fact, he had never even considered it. Sigismund had no option but to let the matter rest.

That night, in the early hours of the morning, John XXIII dressed himself in a grey cape and covered his head with a grey cowl, disguising his identity. Mounting a small grey horse, he rode out of Constance with a crossbowman, an esquire and a priest. It was three days before full moon. At Ermatingen he rested at a clergyman’s house, and had something to drink. Then he went down to catch the boat that was to take him to the city of Schaffhausen.

Despite his assurances to Sigismund, Duke Frederick provided the
boat. He also provided the soldiers aboard – who were to guard the pope from here until he reached the sanctuary of the duke’s city.
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Friday 22nd

In 1400, when Henry IV had been intent on leading a very large army into Scotland, he had ordered all those who had received a grant of land from him or from his royal predecessors to join him in his campaign or lose the lands in question.
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It had proved an effective way of marshalling extra forces and at the same testing the loyalty of his subjects. Today Henry V, acting on the advice of his council, followed his father’s example. He ordered the sheriffs of London to proclaim to all knights, esquires and yeomen holding their estates by grant from Edward III, the Black Prince, Richard II, John of Gaunt, Henry IV or Henry V, ‘and any one else of his livery’, to hasten towards London ‘for urgent causes now nearly moving the king’. They were to assemble there on 24 April at the latest.
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From there they would march to Southampton, ready to embark on 8 May. Further similar orders to sheriffs of other counties would follow in due course.

Saturday 23rd

At Constance, there was turmoil. If the pope had fled, how could this continue to be called a council? Was it not futile to continue? If they had failed to persuade John XXIII to resign, what hope did they have of persuading the other two popes to do so, now that they knew his promises were worthless?

Into this crisis stepped Dr Jean Gerson. He preached a powerful sermon in which he declared that the Church as a body was bound to Christ, its head, through the Holy Spirit. All Christians, including the popes, were therefore bound to accept the authority of Christ, and this took precedence over all canon law.

It was the right sermon at the right time. It steadied the nerves of those present. But from our point of view it is particularly interesting, for it encompassed the key debate of the Christian world in the year 1415. In questioning whether the Church owed obedience to the pope
or directly to Christ, Gerson was asking the same question as Jan Hus. And he was coming to the same answer: the Church’s relationship with Christ took precedence over all mortal authorities. Such a line of thinking was very dangerous for it amounted to a licence to rebel against the ecclesiastical authorities in the name of Christ. It was thus a mandate for spiritual independence and even political insurrection. What right did men like Henry V have to claim they were king by God’s will if their rebellious subjects could claim to be acting in Christ’s name? In Jean Gerson’s burning of Jean Petit’s
Justification of the duke of Burgundy
, treason had been equated with heresy. In the trials of John Oldcastle’s rebellion, heresy had been equated with treason. Who had the right to declare what was heretical? And if the nature of heresy was in doubt, and if all lesser figures than Christ could be disobeyed, even popes, might not Christ condone treason?

All across Europe, the authority of religious and secular leaders was under attack. It was far from clear whether it would withstand the pressure – or collapse into spiritual anarchy and civil wars.

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Henry was doing his part to maintain both his divine right and his political power. Today he granted an annuity of £40 to Gerard Sprong, one of the men in charge of his guns at the Tower, for good service to both himself and his father.
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As he understood well, questions of spiritual authority and political power could not be resolved simply as matters of theory, at least not permanently. But one could demonstrate God’s will, and resolve the question of treason at the same time, through war.

Sunday 24th: Palm Sunday

Excitement about the end of Lent had been growing for a week now, since the beginning of Passiontide. Today, Palm Sunday, the feeling grew more intense. Holy Week had finally begun. In churches up and down the country, men and women listened to the story of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem, as it appears in St John’s gospel. In the chapel royal Henry would have watched his clergy bless branches of willow or sallow – palm leaves being unavailable in England. He would have
watched as the consecrated bread and wine was placed in a shrine and carried in procession out of the chapel. He and the lords with him would have joined a second procession, holding the branches behind a priest bearing a cross. Each procession would have halted to hear the St Matthew version of the entry of Christ into Jerusalem. After this, the processions merged at the south door of the chapel and listened to a choir of seven boys singing
Gloria Laus et Honor
. Entering the church again through the west door, the veil over the crucifix was drawn aside while Mass was sung.
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Not surprisingly, very little official business was enrolled during Holy Week. One of the few items we can associate with the king is his grant today of 40 marks yearly for life to an esquire, John Steward, who had served him since before his accession.
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In his prison cell, Jan Hus set pen to paper and composed the following letter that he sent to Lord John of Chlum:

All my guards are leaving already, and I shall have nothing to eat. I do not know what will become of me in prison. Go with the other lords to the emperor, I pray, so he might make some final disposition of me, and so he may not commit sin and shame on my account …

Noble Lord John go quickly with Lord Wenceslas [of Dubá] and the others to the emperor, for there is danger in delay. It is necessary that you do so at the earliest possible moment …

I fear that the master of the papal court will carry me away with him in the night, for he will remain today in the monastery. The bishop of Constance sent me the message that he wishes to have no dealings with me. The cardinals have done the same.

If you love the poor
Anser
[Lord John’s nickname for Hus] arrange that the emperor give me his own guards or free me from prison this evening.

Given in prison (O Lord, do not tarry!) on Sunday, towards the evening.

Monday 25th: Lady Day

Today was the feast of the Annunciation, or Lady Day: the commemoration of the announcement to the Virgin that she would give birth
to Christ. It was also the day on which the year of grace changed. Although 1 January was the day for ‘New Year’ gifts, and 21 March was the day on which the ‘official’ year changed (
anno regis
, the year of the king’s reign), the year 1415
anno Domini
began on 25 March.

Tuesday 26th

At Constance the council held a full session without a pope – an unprecedented event. Leadership naturally fell to the emperor, who wore his crown and his imperial state robes for the occasion. A number of the cardinals had left Constance to chase after John XXIII – some to persuade him to return (including Fillastre), some simply to follow him out of loyalty – but those who remained had been reassured by Jean Gerson. They attended the popeless session, giving weight to its declarations.

Cardinal Zabarella took the role of spokesman. He declared that the council had been rightfully convened at Constance, and the departure of John XXIII in no way nullified it. The council would not dissolve nor leave Constance, even to transfer to another place, until the schism had been brought to an end and the Church reunited. This last clause was emphasised because a notice from the pope had appeared on the door of the cathedral requiring all members of the papal curia to follow him to Schaffhausen.
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That evening after vespers Cardinal Fillastre and two other cardinals returned to Constance. They bore a promise from John XXIII that he would appoint proctors. He proposed to select eight of the four nations’ thirty-two deputies, and if three of them agreed that he should abdicate, then it would be so. This seemed to be an attempt to circumvent his earlier public agreement to abdicate.

The emperor was outraged. He declared that he was henceforth at war with the duke of Austria, who had by now also left Constance. The other prelates there urged him to remain calm, for such a war would undoubtedly break up the council, and many would see John XXIII as being justified in fleeing from the city. Sigismund’s anger was not to be soothed easily, however, and he sent word to the duke that a state of war now existed between them.

Quite what the English lords at the council thought of all this is not known. But about this time they packed up and set out on the
return trip.
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Their role as ambassadors to the emperor had been performed; and the emperor himself was more concerned with his own affairs than those of a distant English king.

Wednesday 27th

As Henry knelt at Mass today he listened to the account of the rending of the veil in the Temple of Jerusalem. As the words rang out, so a priest dramatically tore the silk veil away from the crucifix above the rood screen, revealing the sculpture of the crucified Christ.
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After Mass, Henry made the first of several grants to the priory of the Virgin and St Thomas the Martyr at Newark, Surrey.
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He also temporarily appointed his servant Roger Assent to the office of forester of Cank Forest in Staffordshire.
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That evening the first of the Tenebrae – the services of shadows – took place in the chapel royal. Twenty-four candles were placed on a large triangular candleframe to the south of the altar, representing the apostles and prophets. As the service progressed that evening, one candle was extinguished as each response was sung until only one was left alight in the vast darkness of the church. The king and other attendants then departed in silence, leaving the one candle burning.
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Thursday 28th: Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday, the commemoration of the Feast of the Last Supper, had always been important for the English royal family. As long ago as the reign of King John, the king had made presents of money and clothes to thirteen paupers on this day (relating to the number of people present at the Last Supper). Edward II had personally undertaken the
pedelavium
– the ritual of washing the feet of the paupers who were to receive the gifts – as a demonstration of his humility. Edward III and Richard II had regularly made quite large donations to the poor on this day. But it was Henry IV who had transformed the occasion, for he had a special connection with Maundy Thursday, probably being born on that day. From the age of fifteen he had given a shilling or clothes and shoes to as many poor men as there were
years in his age on Maundy Thursday. By the end of the decade, his wife had started to follow his example, and made donations according to the number of years in
her
age. Henry himself continued these traditions, including the
pedelavium
and the age-related donations.
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The practice of the monarch making monetary gifts to poor men and women continues to this day. However, it is not clear that Henry related his Maundy Thursday gift to his age in 1415. Two years earlier he had donated fourpence to each of 3,000 paupers – a total distribution of £50.
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But we can be sure that Henry would have marked the day in a fitting manner, mindful of his father’s example. And at the end of the day he would have again attended a service to hear the Tenebrae sung again in the chapel royal.

Friday 29th: Good Friday

In the early part of the previous century on Good Friday the English kings had laid hands on people suffering from scrofula, a form of tuberculosis called the King’s Evil. Imagine a line of several hundred sick men and women, whose necks had swollen like those of pigs, queuing up to see the king. The semi-divine position of kings meant they were supposed to be able to cure this ailment simply by touching. In reality the kings tended not to touch the sufferers themselves but rather to bless a penny that was given to each of them. The practice had fallen temporarily into abeyance in the 1340s, but in its place Edward III had introduced the blessing of cramp rings – medicinal rings that were worn to cure the wearer from epilepsy.
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This was the way in which Henry V displayed his thaumaturgical powers. Although the 1415 account for Good Friday does not survive, the 1413 one reads ‘In money paid to the dean of the chapel for the money paid for the making of medicinal rings 25s’.
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Henry would also have demonstrated his piety by joining the clergy in ‘creeping to the Cross’. Two priests held up a veiled crucifix behind the high altar during the singing of the responses; they then uncovered it and laid it on the third step before the altar. The king and priests then crawled towards it, shoeless – although it is likely that the king was given a comfortable carpet, so the crawling did not hurt his knees.
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