1415: Henry V's Year of Glory (65 page)

*

The duke of Bourbon joined the king, the dauphin, the duke of Berry and the other lords today at Rouen, adding his contingent to the army gathering there. Bourbon and Berry (Bourbon’s father-in-law) had both withdrawn from court earlier in the year due to their disgust at the dauphin’s behaviour. Now France was in danger, these old quarrels were being set aside. The duke of Orléans was still at Cléry, not far from Orléans, but he was about to ride north in haste. Even the duke of Brittany, who had recently renewed his agreement with Henry’s negotiators, was on his way from Falaise to Rouen, albeit slowly.
⁶¹

There was one obvious exception to this collective unity against the English. John the Fearless was still two hundred miles away, making a leisurely trip between dinner at Chaigny and supper at Beaune.
⁶²
It seems he had decided to honour his agreements and letters of peace with Henry in a manner of speaking – he would not
personally
involve himself in the quarrel with the king of France. At the same time this allowed him to obey the order from the king of France not to join the host advancing against the English in person. His promises to attend the army in person were just bluster. By an extraordinary coincidence, the duplicitous duke’s mind had been made up for him by the fact that both the kings he was playing off against each other wanted him to stay away. So he decided he would.

Friday 18th

The English army continued towards Nesle. Being further away from the river, they did not look for crossings and thus made faster progress. From leaving Boves yesterday morning and arriving this evening at Nesle, they covered between twenty-five and thirty-five miles, depending on whether they travelled via Corbie and Harbonnières or via Caix.
⁶³
It was a full moon today, so it is likely that the king ordered the army to march later into the evening, pressing on to his destination.

At Nesle they met an unwelcome sight. The townsfolk knew that a large French army under d’Albret and Boucicaut was gathering at Péronne, just sixteen miles away; so they hung red banners over the wall, signifying their refusal to surrender. Henry angrily gave orders that the villages around Nesle be ‘burned and utterly destroyed’ on the following day. As he had stationed his men in these same villages, the burning was presumably to be carried out as the army departed their quarters.
⁶⁴
It is a sign of the desperation into which Henry himself had now sunk – that he was prepared to issue orders for indiscriminate burning, contrary to his own ordinances.

But at this very moment, when he had already led his men 170 miles from Harfleur, he had a stroke of luck. Someone told him that there was an unguarded ford in the vicinity. It may have been someone from Nesle who informed him, hoping thereby to save the threatened villages. Or it might have been someone who had remained in one of the villages when the English had arrived. One chronicle states that the location of the crossing was revealed by some prisoners who were being dragged along with the army.
⁶⁵
Perhaps an English scout noticed for himself that a broken causeway led to a broken bridge that was still passable – another chronicle tells a story along these lines.
⁶⁶
Whatever the source, Henry’s scouts delivered the news either in the night or in the early morning. The ford lay near Bethencourt, about three miles away. The author of the
Gesta
reckoned it would save the English army eight days’ marching if they could cross there.

Saturday 19th

Henry sent an advance party of mounted men to investigate the ford at first light. He instructed them to test the conditions of the ford and the depth and speed of the water. They returned with good news. A mile short of the Somme was another very marshy little river, which the army would have to cross, and they would be in great danger if they were to be attacked at that point. But beyond it there were two long, narrow causeways leading up to two fords through the Somme itself. These had been broken in several places, so that one could barely pass in single file. Nevertheless, the river could be crossed. The depth in the middle was only a little higher than the belly of a horse.

Henry immediately gave the order to advance. Any delay would increase the risk of the French discovering the plan. Before leaving he ordered the villages where the army had sheltered overnight to be pulled apart so that doors, shutters, window-frames, stairs, structural timbers, straw and every other suitable commodity should be used to make good the causeways. After this, the remnants of the buildings in the villages were set alight, in accordance with his earlier order.
⁶⁷

Sir Gilbert Umphraville and Sir John Cornwaille led the crossing party, taking a number of men-at-arms and archers from the vanguard over the ruined causeways on foot, and then through the river, to set up a defensive position protecting the ford on the far side. When sufficient men were across, the doors and timbers from the villages were brought up and laid down, so the horses and carts could be drawn to the river and across. Henry ordered that one ford be used for the fighting men – whom he needed quickly on the other side – and the other for the horses and baggage. He himself stood by the entrance to the soldiers’ causeway, making sure that the men did not pack themselves in too tightly in their urgency to cross. In this way, quickly, Henry achieved a bridgehead on the far side of the water.

How come Henry had been able to cross at this point, despite the shadowing French scouts? The answer is that, in marching to Nesle, the English soldiers had moved several miles away from the river and so the French had lost track of them. It was fortunate, to say the least; Henry had only taken the route to cut off a bend in the river, near Péronne. But as a result of his unplanned and unpredictable troop movements, only now did the French scouts relocate the English army. They must have been aghast to see the English on the
north
bank, in the process of crossing. They hurriedly called up reinforcements and made as if to attack, but realised that they did not have enough men there to force the English back. For a while they remained at a distance, gauging whether to fight or not; but all the while the English force on the north bank grew stronger, and eventually the French scouts abandoned the place altogether.

According to the author of the
Gesta
, the army started to wade through the Somme about 1 p.m. and continued until an hour short of nightfall.
⁶⁸
According to the later Burgundian chroniclers, the attempt to make the crossing had started at 8 a.m. and continued until nightfall. If the advance guard went across earlier than the main battle, as
soon as Henry ordered, then both accounts are probably correct. When all the men were across, they marched by moonlight to the villages to which the herbergers directed them.
⁶⁹
Henry himself was found a suitable house at Athies. Others were lodged at Monchy-Lagache.

The English troops were in higher spirits than they had been for days. ‘It was a cheerful night that we spent in those hamlets,’ wrote the author of the
Gesta
.
⁷⁰

*

Just ten miles from Bethencourt lay Péronne, where the leaders of the French army north of the Somme were meeting in council. The duke of Bourbon was apparently one of those present; he must have spent many hours in the saddle over the last two or three days, covering the 120 miles from Rouen. Also present were Charles d’Albret and Boucicaut, the duke of Alençon, the count of Richemont, the count of Eu, the count of Vendôme, Guichard Dauphin and Jean de Werchin, seneschal of Hainault.
⁷¹
The duke of Bourbon declared that King Charles had resolved to do battle with Henry ‘in the coming week’ and that both the king and the dauphin were intending to be there at the battle in person. Probably as a result of Bourbon’s news, the other lords at Péronne joined him in writing a letter to the duke of Brabant at Louvain, requiring him also to participate in the forthcoming battle with his men-at-arms.
⁷²

Despite the explicit reference in this letter, the strategy of bringing the English to battle so soon did not originate in Rouen. King Charles himself did not yet know of it. Discussions regarding general strategy were still underway among the courtiers, and an important council meeting to settle the matter was scheduled for the following day. The decision for the army north of the Somme to do battle ‘in the coming week’ seems to have been a decision made by the duke of Bourbon, either by himself or in conjunction with those at Péronne. Bourbon may have hastened to Péronne specifically to encourage these moves to war. It was noted by one chronicler that Bourbon was particularly keen to attack the English.
⁷³
And the duke certainly had already shown an eagerness to fight. Only in January he had founded the Order of the Prisoner’s Shackle for the purpose of fighting Englishmen. It looked as though Bourbon was going to have his chance sooner rather than later.

*

Although Henry’s ploy of leading the French away from Harfleur by using himself as bait had worked brilliantly, allowing the garrison of 1,200 men to rebuild the defences without interruption or danger, the problems they faced within the town were far from over. The dysentery had infected the townsmen too during the siege, and had contributed to its surrender. Now those busy rebuilding the place were having to work in the same unsanitary conditions. They were also going down with the disease.

Lord Botreaux was one of those who fell seriously ill after the army departed. No doubt he had visions of the church at Cadbury where he had declared he wished to be buried, just three months earlier. Perhaps he recalled the bequests he had made to his wife Elizabeth and young daughters. He was sent back to Dover by ship today. But as things turned out, he was one of the lucky ones. His last will would remain in a chest at Cadbury for another forty-seven years before he finally passed away.
⁷⁴

Sunday 20th

The English soldiers rested in the villages where they had spent the night, finding food left by the villagers and the French scouts. No doubt Henry held another council meeting. His army was now on the same side of the Somme as the French, and they had an army waiting to intercept them.

Three French heralds came and presented themselves to the duke of York, leader of the vanguard, who sent them to the king. As if to pour scorn on their morality, an English chronicler noted that one of the heralds, Jacques de Heilly, had absconded from prison in England and had fled secretly to France ‘carrying a beautiful woman’.
⁷⁵
According to the French herald Gilles le Bouvier, the dukes of Bourbon and Bar and Charles d’Albret had met the count of Nevers (youngest brother of John the Fearless) at Corbie, and collectively they had sent the ambassadors to Henry, challenging him to battle. Le Bouvier added that they told Henry they would fight him at Aubigny in Artois on the following Thursday. Henry accepted the challenge, and gave de Heilly and his companions gifts.
⁷⁶

The author of the
Gesta
also stated that Henry accepted the challenge but added that he prepared to do battle the following day.
⁷⁷
The two accounts appear incompatible – until one remembers that the armies were in very close proximity to one another. Unless Henry had been ready to do battle immediately, he could easily have been surprised by the French. Hence he prepared to fight straight away.

*

At Rouen, the French king presided over a great council of thirty-five noblemen. The duke of Anjou had now joined the lords gathered there, and so had the duke of Brittany. The main item on the agenda was whether to attack the English army or not. There is no sign that they had any idea of the duke of Bourbon’s resolution to attack by the 26th.

Thirty of the thirty-five men present were for fighting. Of the five against, the most important was the duke of Brittany. He declared that ‘he would not make one step [towards the English] unless his cousin the duke of Burgundy were there’.
⁷⁸
His reference to Burgundy suggests that he and Burgundy knew of each other’s agreements with the king of England and that, through Brittany’s ambassadors in mid-August, the two dukes had decided they would act together. However, Brittany and the other four objectors at Rouen were heavily outnumbered. The other councillors claimed that the troops in the French army north of the Somme were already sufficient for the French to attack safely. If Brittany wanted to hold back or withdraw, his decision would have to be a personal one.

The council resolved to send word immediately to the constable, Charles d’Albret, telling him of the decision to fight. They also resolved to send orders throughout the kingdom requiring all the lords accustomed to bear arms to hasten to him, day and night, from wherever they were. But contrary to the duke of Bourbon’s assumption, neither the king nor the dauphin would join the army. The duke of Berry (whose father King John II had been captured by the English at Poitiers) put forward reasons of security in support of this, arguing that there was no point in risking losing the king or his son, and his argument was convincing. The dauphin was apparently much put out that he would not take part in the fight but he was forced to accept the council’s
decision .
⁷⁹
It was also decided that two other dukes would not fight: the duke of Berry, who was too old; and the duke of Anjou, who was suffering from a bladder disease. Anjou’s six hundred men would be led to join the main army by the seigneur de Longny.
⁸⁰