1415: Henry V's Year of Glory (29 page)

Almost everything was now in place. The plan to sail from Southampton to Harfleur was set, the reconnaissance of Harfleur had been undertaken, the security of the realm had been organised, the interim government had been arranged, the agreements to serve had been settled, the safety of Calais had been seen to, the defence of the seas and the coastline was in order, and gunpowder and bowstaves had been manufactured and laid in store. Yet much more still remained to be done. Henry might have been growing impatient by this stage but once again he had to set back the date of the invasion. The new date for sailing was 1 July.
⁹⁵

May

Wednesday 1st
¹

MAYDAY SAW THE
beginning of summer. Across the country, men and women rose early and went out looking for wild flowers and greenery to deck their houses and streets. In the city of London and the surrounding parishes dancing took place around maypoles; a particularly large one was set up in Cornhill. In some places the people staged Robin Hood plays and held feasts called May ales, with tables laden with mutton, chicken, bread and pastries – and of course lots of ale. May queens and May kings were chosen and given garlands; they were crowned and paraded in procession, with May officers supervising the celebrations, and everyone settling at the end of the evening around a great bonfire.
²

In the Palace of Westminster, the exchequer clerks were busy enrolling notes of payments. Nicholas Merbury was reimbursed for obtaining a thousand lances for the Harfleur expedition, and for more saltpetre and sulphur for making gunpowder. The clerk recorded a payment of 40 marks to Robert Rodyngton for guarding the ships laden with wine that he had arrested and escorted safely to Southampton for the king. Payments were also made showing that Henry had recently taken steps to mobilise the clergy for war. Sums were paid to various messengers to deliver letters issued under the great seal, commissioning the archbishops and bishops to hold a view of the clergy within their dioceses, ‘counting the multitude and members of the clergy and notifying them to the chancellor by certificate on the 8th day of July next coming’. And in the wake of the great council, at which Henry had asked for the bishops and archbishops to consider what loans they might make to assist his expedition, Richard
Norton and John Sewale, messengers, were paid ‘for taking eight letters under the king’s signet to various bishops and abbots for money lent by them to the king as well as certain letters sent under the privy seal to Hankyn de Mitton for money lent by him to the king for his voyage across the sea’.
³

Under today’s date we also find evidence that Henry had made a personal visit to Southampton (his intended port of embarkation) within the last few weeks. John Drax, sergeant-at-arms, was paid for arresting Christopher Rys by the king’s order, whom he ‘brought to the presence of the said king at Southampton’. How recent this visit was, it is not possible to say; the longest prolonged gap in Henry’s itinerary is early March; but it is possible that he had inspected the town more recently, perhaps in Holy Week.

Under this day’s date we find other references to Southampton. William Soper was paid £280 ‘for making the new ship named
Holyghost
’ as well as a further £20 ‘for paintings on the king’s new ship the
Holy Ghost
at Southampton’. The exchequer clerks also paid messengers for carrying letters to various sheriffs for them to assemble cattle and lead them to Southampton to feed the army about to muster there. This is the first sign of the great drive of men and provisions towards Southampton that would take place over the subsequent months, and which everyone in Southern England would have seen taking place along the highways and byways around their parishes.

Thursday 2nd

The previous day, at 4 p.m., the messengers carrying the signed notice of the pope’s decision to abdicate had arrived in Constance. They were told that the twelve days the pope had been allowed for his decision had expired the previous night. Today a general session would be held at which the pope would be formally accused by public edict for his crimes, damages, and other offences.
⁴

The citation against the pope had already been drafted, and the cardinal of Ostia received a copy at about 7 a.m. this morning. Few other cardinals had time to read it as they were being summoned into the cathedral. When all were assembled in the emperor’s presence, the deputation from John XXIII was read aloud. Sigismund responded that
it was too late: he refused to accept it. The representatives of the four nations were similarly scornful of the pope’s advances. Nothing more was said on the matter. The opening Mass began, and the other prelates who were late arriving took their seats. After the Mass, the citation was read out. John was accused of heresy, promoting the schism, simony, maladministration, wasting the property of the Church, and sinful acts in his personal life. At the end of each charge, the representatives of each nation responded, ‘
placet
’ – it is pleasing.

The cardinals present heard the accusations, and were not pleased. The text had been received by the cardinal of Ostia only just before the session. The bishops from the nations were lesser men than the cardinals; yet the bishops had been privy to proceedings. The college of cardinals had been deliberately overlooked, as if superfluous to the discussions. It amounted to contempt – and now they rose and gave vent to their feelings. How was it that the English nation, with fewer than twenty churchmen and only three bishops, could cast a vote on this matter, and yet they, the cardinals, could not? There were sixteen cardinals present, and they all took precedence over all the English churchmen. They had a good point.

Eventually, after much wrangling, the cardinals were refused permission to form a nation of their own. Instead they were fobbed off with the right to appoint six deputies who could sit with the representatives of the nations. The determination of the emperor to end the schism, supported by the prelates of the German, French and English nations, was greater than the traditional authority of the papal curia. The latter had lost much of their respect, and with it they had lost power.

Friday 3rd

Henry gave orders today for William Kingston, master of the
Katherine of the Tower
, to equip his ship and be ready to enter the king’s service. Similar orders were delivered to John Piers, master of the
Little Trinity of the Tower
, and to William Robinson, master of the
Nicholas of the Tower
, and to Stephen Thomas, master of the king’s great flagship, the
Trinity Royal.
⁵

In the great tapestry of the whole fifteenth century, the most
important thing that happened today was a birth, and its significance was a complete unknown to all those present. It had nothing to do with Henry himself, nor his ships, nor the council of Constance, nor France. A baby girl was born, and the mother was Joan Beaufort, Henry’s aunt. The father was the stalwart Ralph Neville, earl of Westmorland, on whom Henry relied for the defence of the north. Henry’s newborn cousin was called Cecily, and she would grow up to marry Richard, son of Richard of Conisborough, earl of Cambridge. Her husband would begin the dynastic struggle that we know today as the Wars of the Roses; and she would give birth to twelve children. Two would become kings of England: Edward IV and Richard III.

History, through its linear stories, encourages us not to think in such terms. But just as Henry was giving his orders for his flagship, the
Trinity Royal
, to be made ready for his forthcoming invasion of France, a group of women in a chamber at Raby Castle were wiping his aunt’s brow, washing her body, and changing the sheets on her bed – and bathing the crying infant whose sons would one day kill Henry’s son and grandson, obliterating the Lancastrian dynasty.

Saturday 4th

Henry’s business today was principally taken up with German shipping. He ordered officials at Kingston upon Hull to de-arrest the ship called
Holy Ghost of Lubeck
, which was then in the port, and to allow the master Herman Sasse to return to his homeland.
⁶
A licence was drawn up at his instigation for two German merchants to ship wheat and malt to Norway.
⁷
And a commission was issued to two men to take the sail, anchors, cables and armaments of a German ship lately wrecked in the port of Kingston upon Hull, and to deliver them to one of his mariners.
⁸
It was perhaps no coincidence that three items of German business should be dealt with by him on the same day. One might speculate that he had received a German delegation of sorts, or that he had appointed a specific clerk to deal with German affairs.

*

MAT
At Constance, the day of reckoning had come for the soul of the late John Wycliffe – at least in terms of its earthly fate. Forty-five articles against him – forty-five possible instances of heresy in his writings – were re-examined and condemned anew. To these were added a further 266 examples of his heretical teaching. Regardless of any good he had done in his lifetime, a sentence was drawn up condemning not only his books but also his memory.

For Henry, this was justification of his condemnation of the Lollards. For Jan Hus, Jerome, and their supporters, it was a declaration of ominous intent.

Monday 6th

Rogationtide – the days between Rogation Sunday and Ascension Day – saw more religious processions. Most communities carried crosses around their parishes, asking for God’s blessing upon the fertility of the soil. Church bells were rung and banners carried, but there was no feasting. Instead, men and women were expected to fast again, eschewing meat for three days as in Lent, until Ascension Day itself.
⁹

Henry granted £10 to his servants Thomas Green and John Mede, this sum having been confiscated from the constable of Berkhamsted Castle as a fine for allowing the escape of two felons from the castle.
¹⁰
He issued a commission of inquiry into the circulation of false coin in Cambridgeshire – his second inquiry of this year into the treasonable practice of counterfeiting money.
¹¹
And he commissioned Sir James Harrington, the duke of York’s lieutenant of the East March, and eight other men to arrest a total of thirty-one named men who had breached the truce agreed between Henry and the Scottish regent, the duke of Albany. They were to be imprisoned in Berwick Castle ‘until they have made due reformation of their incursions’.
¹²

*

At Constance, at the time of vespers (early evening), the emperor publicly took back the duke of Austria into his favour. In the Franciscan monastery, the duke went down on his knees three times before the emperor and submitted himself, his castles, cities, towns, vassals and
subjects unreservedly to Sigismund. He begged to be forgiven for his crimes against the emperor and against the Church, and everyone present. He submitted himself absolutely to the authority of the council and begged only that the pope’s life be spared, and promised that, if this was granted, he would bring him back to Constance.

Sigismund was satisfied. He took the town of Freiburg, where John XXIII was staying, into his own hands, and ordered that the pope be guarded day and night, with twelve guards during the day and twenty-four at night. Cardinal Fillastre noted in his record of events that things had turned out as he had foretold: the pope had exchanged one threat for a far worse one. Now he stood to lose everything.
¹³

Wednesday 8th

Henry granted two lords, his brother Thomas and his cousin the duke of York, letters of protection for his forthcoming voyage.
¹⁴
He ordered that the royal revenues from Carmarthen should be handed over to the mayor and burgesses of the town ‘as the Welsh rebels razed the walls and the citizens are robbed nightly as a result’.
¹⁵
And Sir John Tiptoft – the long-standing Lancastrian supporter who had risen to prominence as Speaker of the Commons during his father’s reign – was formally appointed seneschal of Aquitaine.
¹⁶
This seems to have been the first positive move Henry made with regard to Gascony since his uncle’s return in the summer of 1414.

The same day the constable of Dover was commissioned to levy £80 from the people of Sandwich in the case of Katherine Kaylewates of Flanders. The patent letter explained how she had been robbed of goods to that value, contrary to the truce between England and Flanders, and how the king wished to provide remedy for her.
¹⁷
Henry was allowing nothing to threaten the fragile series of alliances and non-aggression pacts that he had carefully built up since his accession.

Thursday 9th: Ascension Day

The sixth Thursday after Easter was Ascension Day, the commemoration of Christ’s ascent into Heaven. The church bells were rung
once more, and processions were held in which the clergy of the great churches carried their valuable relics through the streets of their towns. Those who had been fasting for the last three days found relief in the form of the great feast.
¹⁸
And, in Henry’s case, special oblations were made. In 1413 he had marked Ascension Day with a gift of £2 to a Franciscan friar, on top of his usual gifts.
¹⁹

At about this time, Henry left Westminster and headed west, to Reading. Before he did so, he granted authority to Sir Robert Umphraville and Sir James Harrington to prorogue the truce with Scotland, or to negotiate a new one. This was merely a precautionary measure, pending more specific arrangements that would follow in a week’s time.
²⁰