Agincourt (14 page)

Rebuilding a ship on the frame of an old one was a common maritime practice in the medieval period and indeed for many centuries afterwards. It was a cost-effective exercise, allowing for the sale of all the old scrap and outdated fittings, while reducing the investment needed for timber and other materials that could be reused. Much of Henry’s new fleet was built in this way, and as a high proportion of the vessels were captured as a result of either war or letters of marque (documents issued by countries authorizing private citizens to seize goods and property of another nation), this substantially increased the savings to be gained. The cost of rebuilding Soper’s Spanish ship, the
Seynt Cler de Ispan
, as the
Holy Ghost
, and refitting a Breton ship, which had been seized as a prize, as the
Gabriel
, amounted to only £2027 4s 111/2d. This compared favourably to the sums in excess of £4500 (excluding gifts of almost four thousand oak trees and equipment from captured shipping) spent building Henry’s biggest new ship, the 1400-ton
Gracedieu
, from scratch.
²⁶

Unfortunately, neither the
Holy Ghost
nor the
Gracedieu
would be ready in time for the Agincourt campaign. Despite Catton’s and Soper’s best efforts, it was not easy finding and keeping skilled and reliable shipbuilders. On at least two occasions the king ordered the arrest and imprisonment of carpenters and sailors “because they did not obey the command of our Lord the King for the making of his great ship at Southampton” and “had departed without leave after receiving their wages.”

Henry’s purpose in all this was not to build up an invasion fleet as such: the magnitude of the transport required for a relatively short time and limited purpose made that impractical. His priority was rather to have on call a number of royal ships that would be responsible for safeguarding the seas. When they were not engaged on royal business, the vessels were put to commercial use: they regularly did the Bordeaux run to bring back wine and even hauled coal from Newcastle to sell in London. So successful was Catton in hiring them out between 1413 and 1415 that he earned as much from these efforts as he received from the exchequer for his royal duties. Nevertheless, their primary purpose was to patrol the Channel and the eastern seaboard, protecting merchant shipping from the depredations of French, Breton and Scottish pirates, and acting as a deterrent to Castilian and Genoese fighting ships employed or sponsored by the French.
²⁷

On 9 February 1415 Henry V ordered that crews, including not just sailors but also carpenters, were to be impressed for seven of his ships, the
Thomas
,
Trinité
,
Marie
,
Philip
,
Katherine
,
Gabriel
and
Le Poul
, which were all called “
de la Tour
,” perhaps indicating that, like the king’s armoury, they were based at the Tower of London. A month later, the privy council decreed that during the king’s forthcoming absence from the realm a squadron of twenty-four ships should patrol the sea from Orford Ness in Suffolk to Berwick in Northumberland, and the much shorter distance from Plymouth to the Isle of Wight. It was calculated that a total of two thousand men would be needed to man this fleet, just over half of them sailors, the rest of them divided equally between men-at-arms and archers.
²⁸

The reason so many soldiers were required was that even at sea fighting was mainly on foot and at close quarters. The king’s biggest ship in 1416 carried only seven guns, and given their slow rate of fire and inaccuracy they served a very limited purpose. Fire-arrows and Greek fire (a lost medieval recipe for a chemical fire that was inextinguishable in water) were more effective weapons but were used sparingly because the objective of most medieval sea battles, as on land, was not to destroy but to capture. Most engagements were therefore fought by coming alongside an enemy ship with grappling irons and boarding her. Imitating land warfare still further, fighting ships, unlike purely commercial vessels, had small wooden castles at both prow and stern, which created offensive and defensive vantage points for the men-at-arms and archers in case of attack.
²⁹

Even with a newly revitalised and rapidly expanding royal fleet, Henry had nothing like enough ships to transport his armies and his equipment. On 18 March 1415 he therefore commissioned Richard Clyderowe and Simon Flete to go to Holland and Zeeland with all possible speed. There they were to treat “in the best and most discreet way they can” with the owners and masters of ships, hire them for the king’s service and send them to the ports of London, Sandwich and Winchelsea. Clyderowe and Flete were presumably chosen for this task because both had shipping connections: Clyderowe had been a former victualler of Calais and Flete would be sent later in the summer to the duke of Brittany to settle disputes about piracy and breaches of the truce. Flete was perhaps unable to fulfil this earlier commission, for when it was reissued on 4 April his name was replaced by that of Reginald Curteys, another former supplier of Calais.
³⁰

What is interesting about this mission is that it could not have happened without the consent of the duke of Burgundy. Holland and Zeeland were technically independent counties in the Low Countries and were ruled by William, count of Hainault, a subject of the Holy Roman Empire. The two states were adjoining, Holland lying to the north of Zeeland, which was then a conglomeration of tiny islands (now much enlarged due to drainage and land reclamation schemes) in the Schelde estuary. The little principality was dwarfed and almost entirely encircled by its neighbours. To the south lay Flanders, which was ruled directly by the duke of Burgundy, whose only son, Philippe, count of Charolais, was his resident personal representative there. To the east lay Brabant, whose duke, Antoine, was the younger brother of John the Fearless. Since William himself was married to John and Antoine’s eldest sister, Margaret of Burgundy, he was part of the family network and the region was controlled by their threefold political alliance. The duke of Burgundy was unquestionably the dominant partner, summoning William, Antoine and other petty rulers of the Low Countries to assemblies over which he himself presided. Had John the Fearless forbidden William to allow English envoys to recruit ships in his territories, there is no doubt that he would have obeyed. That he therefore gave at least tacit approval must be inferred, and, if he did so, it suggests that the French were correct in assuming that secret alliances had been signed the previous autumn between the English and the duke of Burgundy.
³¹

The available records indicate that Clyderowe and Curteys spent almost £5050 (over $3 million in modern money) hiring ships in Holland and Zeeland. Although this is probably not the complete sum, it allows us to make an educated guess about the number of ships they were able to hire. If they paid the customary rates of 2s per quarter-ton, they must have secured some 12,625 tonnage of shipping; if all the vessels were the smallest considered worth hiring (twenty tons), then this suggests that, by 8 June, they had acquired around 631 ships for the king’s expedition. This exercise, and its resultant figure, is only of value in that it bears out a report of the same day that seven hundred ships were on their way to England from Holland.
³²
In view of the fact that medieval estimates of numbers are usually considered to be wildly exaggerated—and, indeed, often are—this provides a salutary reminder that they can also sometimes be correct.

This was still not enough to fulfil the king’s requirements. On 11 April he ordered that all English and foreign vessels of twenty tons or more currently in English ports between the river Thames and Newcastle-upon-Tyne were to be seized into the king’s hands, together with any others that arrived before 1 May. The news caused consternation abroad. “We know that our four merchant ships have not yet arrived . . .” the Venetian Antonio Morosini wrote in July, “and there can be no doubt that they are in danger of falling into the king’s hands, which is greatly to be dreaded. May it please the eternal God that it may not happen!” Successive intelligence reports received in Venice that month indicated that Henry’s fleet was first three hundred strong, then six hundred and finally fourteen hundred “and more.” English ships that were seized were sent to Southampton and foreign ones to Winchelsea, London or Sandwich. There, over the next three months, they were converted from carriers of merchandise into fighting ships and transports for the thousands of men, horses and pieces of equipment that would have to be carried across the Channel to France.
³³

As the summer of 1415 approached and, with it, the beginning of the campaigning season, the pace of military preparation increased steadily. On 20 April Nicholas Frost, the king’s bowyer, was given powers throughout the entire kingdom to hire, at the king’s wages, as many bow-makers and workmen, and purchase as many bow-staves, as were required. A fortnight later, Nicholas Mynot, “ffleccher,” was similarly authorised to commission twelve other fletchers and take timber to make arrows and crossbow bolts, together with the feathers, wax and silk that were also necessary. One thousand lance shafts were ordered from John Wyddemere, a London joiner, at a cost of 6d each. Between 3 May and 4 June, the masters of the king’s ships of the Tower were empowered to impress sailors for the expedition. On 16 May Robert Hunt, the sergeant of the wagons of the royal household, was given nationwide authority to acquire “sufficient carts and wagons” for the king’s campaign, together with wood, iron, carpenters and workmen for making new ones, and “sufficient” horses, with “sufficient” men to lead and drive them.
³⁴
(How Henry’s servants must have dreaded the words “as many as required” and “sufficient” as they strove to assess the needs and fulfil the commands of such an exacting monarch!)

Orders now came thick and fast. To Stephen Ferrour, sergeant of the king’s farriers, to procure farriers, iron, nails and horseshoes. To Simon Lewys and John Benet, masons, to hire for service on the expedition one hundred of the best and most able masons in London and the Home Counties, with their tools. To William Merssh and Nicholas Shokyngton, smiths, to hire forty smiths on the same terms. To Thomas Mathewe and William Gille, carpenters, to hire one hundred and twenty carpenters and turners, ditto. To John Southemede, “fare carter,” to provide sixty-two wheeled carts, together with the horses and their harness.
³⁵

No detail was too small or unimportant for the king’s all-seeing and ever-watchful eye. Anticipating the problem of feeding the great army about to gather at Southampton, he sent orders to the sheriffs of Kent, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Hampshire, that they were each to purchase “at our expense and at a reasonable price” two hundred cattle from within their counties and bring them to appointed places. A month later, the sheriffs of the two closest counties, Wiltshire and Hampshire, were each ordered to buy a further one hundred oxen, bullocks and cows. A further writ to the sheriff of Hampshire ordered him to proclaim that all the king’s loyal subjects in Winchester, Southampton and all the other towns, markets and hamlets of the county should begin baking and brewing “against the coming of the king, his retinue and his subjects.”
³⁶

Whether hiring carpenters or ordering bread and ale, the constant refrain of all Henry’s commands was that nothing was to be taken from Church property or without paying a fair price. This was something that he insisted upon, as a monarch who prided himself on being just to all men, but it was not universal practice. Purveyors behaved notoriously badly, seizing goods without payment or, more commonly, requisitioning them at a low price and then selling them on at a higher one for their own profit. Faced with a purveyor, waving the king’s writ and backed by a group of armed men, few peasants or small farmers would dare to challenge his right to seize their corn, peas and beans, drive off their cattle, pigs and sheep or take their carts and horses. Sometimes the goods would be paid for with a wooden tally, which was the medieval equivalent of a cheque. This was literally a stick, scored across with notches to indicate the sum owed and then split down the middle so that each party retained an identical copy. Unfortunately for the recipient, when the parties presented their tallies for payment in cash, they frequently turned out to be completely worthless.

The purchasing of live cattle, which could be driven to the point of embarkation, was an innovation that reduced the pressure on those living in the immediate neighbourhood to provide meat. More importantly, the king’s insistence on fair and reasonable treatment was extended not just to his own officials but to anyone, of whatever rank, in his army. On 24 July the sheriff of Hampshire was ordered to proclaim that every lord, knight, esquire, valet “and all others whatsoever” going with the king was to provide himself with victuals and other necessaries for the next three months. In the same proclamation he was also to declare that any person who felt aggrieved or harassed by any captain or his soldiers should present himself for remedy before the senior officials of his treasury or household. Complete justice, the king promised, would be rendered on his arrival.
³⁷
This was an innovation without parallel in Europe, where the abuses of the purveying system were accepted as a fact of life. It marked a new era in the relationship between the king and his subjects in England.

Henry’s sense of justice demanded that these abuses should be reformed, but there was also a pragmatic benefit to be gained. He wanted and needed the goodwill of his subjects if he was to embark upon a war whose end could not be foreseen. For this reason, he also took care to ensure that every man, woman and child in the country knew why he was going to France. Every writ he issued to obtain provisions was to be read aloud in the county courts and in the marketplaces by the sheriff of the county to whom it was addressed. This was an opportunity to persuade his subjects of the legitimacy of his cause and the necessity for action. Each one was therefore prefaced with a phrase that was both an explanation and a rallying call: “Because, as you well know, we, with God’s help, are about to go overseas to recover and regain the inheritances and just rights of our crown, which, as everyone agrees, have long been unjustly withheld. . . .”
³⁸
This was a campaign that would involve all the king’s subjects, not just those capable of bearing arms.