1415: Henry V's Year of Glory (92 page)

52.
Foedera
, ix, pp. 167, 169.

53.
See Loomis (ed.),
Constance
, p. 481;
Foedera
, ix, p. 162.

54.
Jacob,
Chichele
, p. 35.

55.
Chronica Maiora
, p. 400.

56.
Wylie,
Henry V
, i, p. 425, n. 3.

57.
CPR
, p. 293.

58.
Dodd, ‘Patronage, Petitions and Grace’, in Dodd and Biggs,
Reign of Henry IV: Rebellion and Survival
, pp. 105–35, at p. 105.

59.
Nicolas (ed.),
Privy Council
, ii, pp. 339–41.

60.
Although there is some doubt about this – Thomas Beaufort’s expense account for this journey claims payments from 14 December 1414, and diplomatic expenses were normally reckoned from the day the claimant left London – it is possible that this relates to when his household set out. The documents for the truce, dated 24 January, name all four ambassadors, but Courtenay seems to have travelled ahead without Langley, Beaufort and Grey. Langley and Beaufort were at a council meeting
in London in February in the second year of the reign. See Nicolas (ed.),
Privy Council
, ii, pp. 150–1.

61.
E 403/621 under 18 May.
Issues
, p. 340 correctly transcribes this. Wylie, i, p. 435 n. 6 has this as 14 December.

62.
E 101/321/26.

63.
E 403/621 records the passage of these three ambassadors under 11 April.

64.
Foedera
, ix, pp. 196–200. It is assumed here that Courtenay agreed the prolongation. He travelled separately to the other principal ambassadors, and two of the others were still in England in February, as shown by the minutes of a council meeting.

65.
Wylie,
Henry V
, i, p. 436.

66.
CPR
, p. 294.

67.
CCR
, p. 169.

68.
CCR
, p. 172;
CPR 1413–1416
, p. 280.

69.
CPR
, p. 277.

70.
CPR
, p. 275.

71.
CPR
, p. 295.

72.
Barker,
Agincourt
, pp. 94–5. Wylie, ii, p. 381, states Edward III once owned 150 ships.

73.
Foedera
, ix, p. 195. The petition is dated 21 January, and endorsed by the chamberlain. The pardon on the Patent Rolls is dated 30 January (
CPR
, p. 275).

February

1.
Hutton,
Rise and Fall
, p. 17.

2.
In 1403, for example, the amount spent on cooking for the royal household on the eve of Candlemas was £11 15d; on the last three days of January that year it had been £13 17s 1d, £11 15s 8½d, £16 5s 4d. Candlemas itself saw £22 10s 1½d spent on cooking. See E 101/404/21.

3.
CPR
, p. 293.

4.
For other letters issued this day, see the three in
CPR
, p. 278, among others. None were attested by the king personally.

5.
Loomis (ed.),
Constance
, p. 109.

6.
Loomis (ed.),
Constance
, pp. 210–11.

7.
Loomis (ed.),
Constance
, p. 109.

8.
Loomis (ed.),
Constance
, pp. 109–10.

9.
Wylie,
Henry V
, i, p. 311 n. 2.

10.
Luke 2: 29–32.

11.
CPR
, p. 284.

12.
Loomis (ed.),
Constance
, p. 110.

13.
Vaughan,
John the Fearless
, p. 203;
Monstrelet
, i, p. 324.

14.
Curry,
Agincourt
, p. 47.

15.
For the minutes of the meeting see Nicolas (ed.),
Privy Council
, ii, pp. 150–1. The reference of the original document is now British Library, Cotton Cleopatra F. III fol. 168–9 (formerly foliated 135–6). It reads ‘
sensuent certains ordennances faites en le moys de ffeurer l’an du regne du Roy Henri le quint second
’. I am grateful to Julian Harrison, Curator of Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts at the BL, for checking this detail for me. The St Denis chronicler states that the English ambassadors rode into Paris on 9 February. Monstrelet states they entered the city with a company of six hundred men on the 10th. However, as noted under 9 February, it is difficult to accept that the whole embassy arrived at that time. Thomas Beaufort was in Paris by 21 February, as the St Denis chronicler stated.

16.
This was in line with the advice of the council of the previous autumn. See Nicolas (ed.),
Privy Council
, ii, pp. 145–8.

17.
Nicolas,
Agincourt
, appendix, p. 21.

18.
Note that it was always described as the nation of
England
, not
Britain.

19.
Loomis (ed.),
Constance
, p. 483.

20.
The roll in question is E 403/620.

21.
Nicolas,
Agincourt
, appendix, pp. 21–3. In February 1417, six great ships are recorded – the
Trinity Royal
, the
Holy Ghost
, the
Nicholas
and three carracks – plus eight barges and ten balingers (24 vessels in all). The list for August 1417 categorises them differently, naming three great ships (including the
Trinity Royal
and the
Holy Ghost
), eight carracks, six ships, one barge, and nine balingers, two of which were associated with the
Trinity Royal
and the
Holy Ghost
(27 vessels).

22.
Issues
, p. 338

23.
See also Wylie,
Henry V
, i, p. 104.

24.
Wylie,
Henry V
, i, pp. 101–2.

25.
Curry,
Agincourt
, p. 48 dates this order to 20 February, citing E 403/619 m. 12. The payment date is clearly under 4 February in E 403/620 as well as under the 20th.

26.
CPR
, p. 276.

27.
Foedera
, ix, p. 200;
Chronica Maiora
, p. 403;
CPR
, p. 294.

28.
CCR
, p. 172. John Clyffe is described as ‘master’ of the minstrels in E 405/28.

29.
CPR
, pp. 278, 281.

30.
CCR
, p. 167.

31.
Loomis (ed.),
Constance
, p. 483.

32.
CPR
, p. 280.

33.
Johnes (ed.),
Monstrelet
, i, p. 322.

34.
Bellaguet (ed.),
Chronique du Religieux
, v, p. 409.

35.
Note that the French embassy, which left Paris on 4 June 1415, took thirteen days to reach Calais, and that was later in the year, when the weather was better. One way of tallying the discrepancy noted in the text would be to suggest that the privy council minute is wrongly dated to February but this is unlikely. The account of the embassy delivered the following January in the Tower of London dates the ambassadors’ crossing to France in February 1415 (
Foedera
, ix, p. 209).

36.
For the legal travelling day of twenty miles, see Loomis (ed.),
Constance
, p. 343; for higher travelling speeds see
TTGME
, p. 132. Information about the phases of the moon has been taken from
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/phase/phases1401.html
, downloaded 10 September 2008.

37.
Bishop Langley, the earl of Dorset and Richard Grey travelled together, independent of Courtenay, as the Issue Rolls for 11 April make clear. Richard Redman’s chronicle also states that the entry of the embassy was a great spectacle; see Cole (ed.),
Memorials
, p. 31.

38.
The English embassy as a whole is supposed to have stayed at the
hôtel de Clisson
; but Courtenay was noted as staying at the
hôtel de Navarre
when he received a visit from Fusoris. Although we do not know the exact date of this meeting, Courtenay’s different residence suggests he was staying elsewhere prior to the arrival of the other English ambassadors, and that he later joined them at the
hôtel de Clisson
.

39.
Allmand,
Henry V
, p. 8. The astrological treatises quoted by Professor Allmand (Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS 393, fol. 109–11; MS 192 pt iii, fol. 26–36) state that Henry was born at 11.22 am on 16 September 1386.

40.
CPR
, p. 294; Nicolas,
Agincourt
, appendix, pp. 21–3.

41.
Monstrelet
, i, p. 322. Waurin’s claim that it was eight days’ celebration cannot be correct, for Ash Wednesday (the first day of the Lenten fast) fell on the fourth day.

42.
Hutton,
Rise and Fall
, p. 19.

43.
Hutton,
Rise and Fall
, p. 19.

44.
These were favourites of the monks at Westminster
in the period. See Harvey,
Living and Dying
, pp. 34–71; also
A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations
, pp. 415–76;
leche Lombard
appears at pp. 458–9.

45.
Hutton,
Rise and Fall
, pp. 18, 58.

46.
Fears
, pp. 211–19.

47.
Brie (ed.),
Brut
, ii, pp. 494–5.

48.
Wylie,
Henry V
, i, pp. 211–12.

49.
CCR
, p. 167. This letter was issued under the authority of the privy seal; it could have been issued in response to a letter under Henry’s signet sent from elsewhere.

50.
Loomis (ed.),
Constance
, pp. 483–4.

51.
CPR
, p. 281.

52.
Nicolas (ed.),
Privy Council
, ii, pp. x, 341.

53.
Loomis (ed.),
Constance
, p. 217.

54.
Foedera
, ix, pp. 197–200.

55.
CPR
, p. 284 (both).

56.
CPR
, p. 286. See also the king’s order of 28 February to the escheator in Gloucestershire in relation to Richard Beauchamp of Bergavenny and his wife Isabel, she being an heir of the late Thomas, Lord Despenser.
CCR
, pp. 165–6.

57.
CCR
, pp. 174–5. The grant to Constance was actually dated 18 February 1415; that to Eleanor 22 February 1415. They have been concatenated here with the other Despenser grant because they clearly relate to the same initiative, which was probably issued in respect of all three parties on the same day, and simply drawn up in separate parts on different days.

58.
For other acts, see
CCR
, p. 168;
CPR
, pp. 285, 294.

59.
CPR
, p. 288.

60.
Foedera
, ix, p. 136.

61.
Foedera
, ix, p. 141; Wylie,
Henry V
, i, p. 414, n. 6.

62.
E 405/28.

63.
CCR
, p. 173.

64.
Foedera
, ix, p. 202;
CPR
, p. 294.

65.
Curry,
Agincourt
, p. 49.

66.
Wylie,
Henry V
, i, p. 527.

67.
Hardy and Hardy (eds),
Waurin
, p. 171.

68.
Wylie,
Henry V
, i, p. 438 (portrait of Katherine);
Monstrelet
, i, p. 322.

69.
E 403/620.

70.
Wylie,
Henry V
, i, p. 415. Vale states that ‘in a convention signed by Henry’s ambassadors at Ypres on 7 August 1414 John the Fearless agreed to support his [Henry’s] claim to the crown [of France] and to furnish him with troops’. Vale,
English Gascony
, p. 70.

71.
Neither of these payments to Henry Scrope on this roll can relate to his embassy in 1413, for which he was reimbursed in the same year. (See Wylie,
Henry V
, i, pp. 149–50.) The duke of Orléans was in communication with Henry in late 1414, granting safe conducts to Henry’s messengers and sending his own chamberlain in November 1414. That November the duke of Burgundy also sent his chamberlain to Henry – it is possible that Scrope’s second voyage relates to these further negotiations with Burgundy. See Wylie,
Henry V
, i, pp. 415–16;
Foedera
, ix, p. 179.