1415: Henry V's Year of Glory (31 page)

Llywelyn ap Madoc Ddu, one of the last followers of Owen Glendower, had finally given up his adherence to the Welsh cause. Today Henry pardoned him ‘for all treasons, rapes, murders, rebellions, insurrections, felonies, conspiracies, trespasses, offences, negligences,
extortions, misprisions, ignorances, contempts, concealments and deceptions committed by him’, and returned to him all his lands within the lordship of Builth, which Henry IV had confiscated on account of his rebellion.
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Glendower was still in hiding but he had been deserted by almost every lord who had served him. Gradually, one by one, Henry was accepting them back into the English fold. He might not necessarily trust them, but at least he could give them an opportunity to give up fighting.

Thursday 16th

Although Henry had already delegated authority to Sir Robert Umphraville and Sir James Harrington to negotiate a new truce with Scotland, he now decided to appoint new negotiators: Lord Grey of Codnor, Robert Ogle and Master Richard Holme. They were to meet with the duke of Albany’s commissioners on 6 August.
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In so doing he replaced the duke of York as warden of the East March with Lord Grey of Codnor, who was not going on the campaign but remaining behind as one of the council. Both the duke of York and Sir James Harrington would now be following Henry to France.

Further arrangements were made for the shipping of the king’s household. The king had a writ drawn up for Robert Hunt, sergeant for the carriage of the royal household, to find sufficient carts and four-wheeled wagons to transport the royal household abroad. Also he was to find ‘timber, iron, carpenters and smiths for the same carts and wagons, newly constructing them where necessary, and sufficient horses for the same, and all manner of other necessities wherever they may be found, both within liberties and without (excepting the estates of the Church), paying a reasonable sum for the same; and arresting, paying and providing sufficient men to govern the said carts.
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At the same time, he gave orders for ships and harbourage for his newly appointed seneschal of Aquitaine, Sir John Tiptoft.
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Henry was mindful of the fact that the first men for the expedition would have started gathering in London, in line with his orders for them to assemble there on 24 April, ready to march to Southampton by 8 May. Ships were already gathering at Southampton, Winchelsea, London and Sandwich, in line with his orders of the previous month
to assemble by 8 May. These deadlines had already passed – and it was still another six weeks before his planned sailing date. Today he ordered Richard Woodville, castellan of Dover Castle, to look over the men mustering at Dover. He expected five knights and eight esquires with retinues totalling 203 men-at-arms and 621 archers to be there.
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One of these knights, Sir John Grey, was supposed to be gathering forty men-at-arms and 120 archers to serve on the campaign.
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None of the other knights and esquires is recorded as serving on the expedition, so presumably they and their retinues were intended for the defence of Calais (as men sailed there from Dover) or for the defence of the seas.

Friday 17th

A large number of letters of protection and safe conduct was issued today to those going abroad in the king’s service. The recipients included Sir John Tiptoft, going to Gascony, and many lesser knights and esquires heading to France: men such as William Shore from Hertfordshire, William Wingate from Bedfordshire, James Grigg from London, John Baskerville from Herefordshire, and James Ethevenes, gentleman of Cornwall. It is a reminder of how the preparation for war was fast becoming a countrywide movement, drawing in men from all across the kingdom, and that men were travelling long distances, staying in inns, buying food and drink, armour and horses, arranging safe conducts and responding to writs. The whole country must have been buzzing with expectation.

Saturday 18th

Five days had passed since the Bohemian and Polish lords had delivered their petition on behalf of Jan Hus to the council of Constance. Two days ago they had received a formal reply from Géraud du Puy, bishop of Carcassonne. The lords had been astonished to hear a number of reasons given justifying the imprisonment of Hus. Although the basic demand of the petition had been agreed – that Hus be given a fair trial – it seemed from the council’s responses that he had already
been judged. Now the lords returned, fired up, and Peter of Mladoňovice responded in a powerful and uncompromising manner, in defence of his friend and teacher:

First, whereas to the lords’ statement that Master Jan Hus came here to Constance of his own will and freely under the safe conduct and protection of the emperor and the empire, you responded that the lords had been ill informed concerning the safe conduct … for you said that Master Jan Hus had procured the safe conduct only fifteen days after his arrest … On the very day of the arrest of Master Jan Hus, Lord John of Chlum, when he was asked by the pope in the presence of amost all the cardinals as to whether he [Hus] had the emperor’s safe conduct, replied ‘Most holy father, be assured that he has’. None of them requested at the time that the safe conduct be shown. Immediately on the next and the third day and thereafter Lord John loudly complained in respect of the pope that Master Hus, under the safe conduct of the emperor, was detained as a prisoner, and showed the safe conduct to many. Moreover to verify what he is saying, he calls on the counts, bishops, knights, esquires, and the notable citizens of this city of Constance for their confirmation and testimony, for they all saw the safe conduct at the time and heard it read aloud.
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This set the tenor for the rest of the speech: sheer anger that the council could dare to fob these lords off with such blatant untruths.

The second response the prelates had given to the lords was treated with similar anger. The lords claimed that Hus had been condemned as a heretic and a heresiarch – an inventor and preacher of new heresies – and excommunicated for failing to appear at the papal curia five years earlier. However, they pointed out that the excommunication had been issued by one of Hus’s enemies, Archbishop Zajic of Prague, who had been acting in a personal capacity. When Hus had been summoned to appear before the papal curia, he had sent proctors, as was proper; but they had been refused an audience and had been imprisoned for several months and cruelly treated, and Hus himself had been condemned in his absence. Cardinal Zabarella had reviewed the case, and had declared the actions against Hus invalid on account of his proctors not being heard; but Michael de Causis, one of Hus’s enemies, persuaded the pope to take the case away from Cardinal
Zabarella and give it to another who was certain to uphold the sentence of excommunication. As for the council’s third response – that Hus had preached heresy since coming to Constance – the lords objected that this was impossible. He had been arrested soon after his arrival, and in the intervening period he had been in the company of Lord John of Chlum who was prepared to swear that Hus had not preached at all.

Such was the strength of Peter of Mladoňovice’s case that he chose to prefix it by saying that the lords ‘do not hereby accuse your paternities of dissimulation in this matter but wish that … you may discern and judge it more clearly and effectively’. It was a polite sop to the cardinals and prelates. One can understand why: Hus stood to suffer if the lords should be dismissed. But the implication that the prelates of the council were lying is equally understandable. It was true.

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Huge amounts of money were now being laid out for the forthcoming expedition. Sir Roger Leche, treasurer of the royal household, and his assistant, John Spenser, received a large number of payments for the costs of ‘the king’s voyage to Harfleur’, totalling more than £3,000. John Rothenhale, controller of the king’s household, had received £400 for the expenses of ‘boys and other persons of the king’s household to attend the voyage to France’. Stephen Flexmer and Henry Bower and others had been paid £6 and 100 marks for making more bows, But these amounted to just a fraction of the total handed out by the exchequer clerks today. Among the many other payments we find:
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• Richard Clitherowe and Reginald Curteis, for the provision of ships from Holland and Zeeland for the king’s voyage abroad £449 6s 9d
  
• Richard Woodville esquire, castellan of the king’s castle of Dover, for the wages of ships’ masters and mariners to guard various ships sent from Zeeland and Holland by Richard Clitherowe and Reginald Curteis £140
  
• William Catton, clerk of the king’s ships, for repairing and mending ships £100
  
• For the earl of Dorset, admiral of England, and other officers attending to the preparation of ships within the waters of the Thames 60s 6d
  
• Roger Hunt, going to the port of Plymouth with £1,883 6s 8d to pay the wages of Sir John Tiptoft, seneschal of Aquitaine, and his retinue in Aquitaine £10
  
• Sir John Neville, custodian of the town of Carlisle and the West March, for the wages of his men-at-arms and archers: two payments, of £148 and £312 10s
  
• Various messengers sent to all the ports of England with letters under the great seal to prohibit the passage of anyone foreign going abroad 63s 4d
  
• Sir Richard Arundel for his expenses in keeping the castle of Bamburgh £120
  
• The earl of Arundel, treasurer of England, for his expenses in going to parts of Wales for certain difficult matters moving the king £18 12s
  
• John Wele and Thomas Strange, for the wages of men-at-arms and archers remaining with them for the safe custody of North Wales £263 5s 6d
  
• John Everdon, clerk of the king’s wars, for conducting certain sums of money for various men-at-arms and archers in South Wales to join the king’s voyage to foreign parts 66s 8d
  

On top of all these payments there were a large number of annual pensions to be paid – £20 to a confectionary cook in the royal spicery, £10 to a royal attorney, £100 to Sir John Robesart, £40 to Nicholas Merbury, £40 to Gerard Sprong … Among them we find a payment to Richard of Conisborough, earl of Cambridge, ‘to whom Richard king of England granted a 100 marks twice yearly for life’. However, today Richard received only £40 of the 100 marks owing to him. If he was feeling aggrieved that Henry was not making sufficient provision for him, this partial payment is hardly likely to have helped. He was an earl – yet the king expected him to get by on an income of £80 per year.

No doubt the reason why Henry did not pay Richard in full was his pressing need to send his money elsewhere. No money was sent to Sir John Talbot in Ireland, even though he had an army in the field. Even the treasurer, the earl of Arundel, had to accept that he could not take the full sum he was due in respect of his wages. Henry realised he would have to rely on loans from now on. As the lords and prelates at the great council had demonstrated, they were prepared
to accept deferred payments on the basis of the king handing over the crown jewels as security. There was a precedent for this in Edward III putting his treasure up as security – even pawning the great crown – in order to pay for his campaigns in 1338–40. Today we find the first evidence that Henry had given instructions to do likewise. John Coppleston junior was paid for coming up from Devon with £573 6s 8d in loans from the dean and chapter of Exeter Cathedral, the mayors and corporations of Exeter and Plymouth, the abbots of Tavistock and Buckfast, the priors of Plympton and Launceston and four gentlemen: Robert Cary, Alexander Champernowne, John Beville and John Copleston. In return he took back jewels worth £800, namely ‘a large tabernacle of gilt silver, garnished with gold, which had belonged to the duke of Burgundy, having twenty balas rubies, twenty-two sapphires and 137 pearls’.
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Today we also find evidence that Henry expected the French ambassadors to come sooner rather than later, for he laid aside £200 ‘for the expenses of the French ambassadors coming from Dover to the presence of the king at Winchester’. Already he was anticipating where he would be when they arrived.
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Like so many other things, he had a tendency to stick to his plans once he had made up his mind. In this case it was not to be to his advantage.

Sunday 19th: Whitsunday

Whitsunday – or Pentecost – commemorated the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and so was of particular significance to a man like Henry who believed so zealously in the Holy Trinity. Two years earlier he had spent £151 16s on the feast held this day, and gave alms of a noble (6s 8d) in the abbey of Westminster.
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No doubt he did something similar in this year – and the religious character of the day is probably the reason why we find no royal business conducted.

Monday 20th

Whit Monday saw processions of all sorts in parish churches, towns and cities. In some places images of the Virgin were carried
in procession. At Exeter a huge May garland was carried through the streets along with the colossal figure of an elephant.
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Quite what the relevance of the elephant was is unclear; few Exonians had ever seen one; even the thirteenth-century carving of an elephant on a misericord in the cathedral would have been known only to a very few people. But the sense of celebration was in the air – and, in some places, for good reason. For example, today, at Vadstena in Sweden, there was a great procession overseen by Henry’s sister, Philippa, as the first nuns stepped out from the monastery for the boats that would take them to their new Bridgettine monastery at Syon.
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A payment of 6s 8d is noted today to John Brown, who was sent ‘with all speed’ to Sir John Wilcotes, whom the king had assigned ‘to provide for the ambassadors of France until they come to the king’s presence’.
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Henry had perhaps had this duty in mind when he had made the grant to Wilcotes in April. Coupled with the £200 he had provided for the ambassadors’ expenses, it reveals that Henry genuinely expected the French to send their representatives to him quickly. As they well knew, they had nothing to gain from sending their men on a futile mission – but they had everything to gain by delaying tactics, forcing Henry to put off his embarkation, and causing him thereby to waste money and resources.