Agincourt (4 page)

Clarence’s expedition was not the military and political triumph he and his father had hoped for, but neither was it a complete disaster. He had failed to realize English ambitions for the restoration of a larger Aquitaine and it would prove well-nigh impossible to extract the sums promised by the Armagnac leaders. On the other hand, he had demonstrated the weakness of a divided France and that it was possible for an English army to march unscathed and without resistance from Normandy to Aquitaine. If nothing else, he had provided his more able brother with a model for the Agincourt campaign.

CHAPTER TWO

A KING’S APPRENTICESHIP

On 20 March 1413 Henry IV died at Westminster Abbey in the Jerusalem Chamber, thereby fulfilling (in the tenuous way of most medieval prophecies) the prediction that he would die “in the Holy Land.” The dazzling young hero, renowned for his personal prowess as a crusader and jouster and for his lavish patronage of the arts, died a broken man, unlamented and unrespected, at the age of only forty-six. He had kept his stolen crown by a combination of luck, ruthlessness and success in battle. He had even succeeded in passing it on to his son. In almost every other respect he had failed. He left the government heavily in debt, the royal council and the wider nobility riven with faction and intrigue, the country plagued by violent disorder and the Church under threat at home from heresy and abroad from schism. In the circumstances, it was probably fortunate that Clarence was still in Aquitaine and powerless to take advantage of the situation to hinder his brother’s accession.
¹

Henry V was determined that his reign would mark a sea-change in the fortunes of the English monarchy. Although he had not been born to be king, he had, quite literally, received a textbook training for his future role. Books of advice on this subject, known as mirrors for princes, had a long tradition dating back to classical times, and an English version, written by Thomas Hoccleve, a clerk of the privy seal (one of the departments of state) and part-time poet, had been dedicated to Henry himself when he was prince of Wales.
²
Christine de Pizan, an Italian-born French poet and author of books on chivalry, had written a similar work for the dauphin Louis, in which she recommended that moral virtues as well as practical skills should be taught, stressing above all the importance of acquiring discipline, humanistic learning and early experience in the workings of government.
³
In all these things the new king excelled.

Henry V had been brought up to be literate and numerate to an unusual degree, probably because he was the son and grandson of two great patrons of literature, chivalry and learning. John of Gaunt was famously an early patron of the court poet Geoffrey Chaucer (who became his brother-in-law), a patronage that was continued by Henry IV. After Chaucer’s death, Henry IV offered his position to Christine de Pizan, no doubt hoping that as she was a widow and her only child, her sixteen-year-old son, was effectively a hostage in his household, she could be persuaded to agree. If so, he completely misjudged this redoubtable woman, who had once replied to criticism “that it was inappropriate for a woman to be learned, as it was so rare . . . that it was even less fitting for a man to be ignorant, as it was so common.” De Pizan had no intention of becoming the English court poet but “feigned acquiescence in order to obtain my son’s return . . . after laborious manoeuvres on my part and the expedition of some of my works, my son received permission to come home so he could accompany me on a journey I have yet to make.”
⁴
Not surprisingly, she later became one of the bitterest and most vocal critics of Henry V and the English invasions of France.

The new king was the eldest of Henry IV’s six surviving children by his first wife, Mary de Bohun, daughter and co-heiress of Humphrey, earl of Hereford. He was born at his father’s castle at Monmouth, in Wales, but because no one expected the boy to become king of England, his date of birth was not formally recorded. The likeliest date, given in a horoscope cast for him later in life, was 16 September 1386.
⁵
From an early age, Henry was able to read and write fluently in English, French and Latin, and like his two youngest brothers, John, duke of Bedford, and Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, both noted bibliophiles, he built up a considerable, if conventional, personal library of classical, historical and theological texts. His taste sometimes ran in a lighter vein, for he is known to have commissioned copies of books on hunting and his personal copy of Chaucer’s poem
Troylus and Cryseyde
still survives.
⁶
He also “delighted in songe and musicall Instruments.” Perhaps because of his Welsh upbringing, he had a particular affinity for the harp, which he learnt to play in childhood; years later, his harp would accompany him on campaign, as did his band of minstrels and the musicians of his chapel. He even composed music: a complex setting of part of the liturgy, the
Gloria
, for three voices by “Roy Henry” is attributed to him.
⁷

In addition to his artistic and literary pursuits, Henry had received a solid grounding in the art of war. Every chivalric treatise had always placed great emphasis on the importance of learning to bear arms from the earliest age; Henry possessed a sword at the age of twelve, and his own son, Henry VI, would be given eight before he reached the age of ten, “some greater and some smaller, for to learn the king to play in his tender age.”
⁸
Hunting in all its forms was strongly recommended by chivalric writers as the perfect preparation for military life. The typical argument was put forward in the first half of the fourteenth century by Alfonso XI, who found time between ruling his kingdom of Castile and fighting the Moors to write a book about the sport.

For a knight should always engage in anything to do with arms and chivalry, and if he cannot do so in war, he should do so in activities which resemble war. And the chase is most similar to war, for these reasons: war demands expense, met without complaint; one must be well horsed and well armed; one must be vigorous, and do without sleep, suffer lack of good food and drink, rise early, sometimes have a poor bed, undergo cold and heat, and conceal one’s fear.
⁹

Different types of hunting required different skills, all relevant to warfare, including knowledge of the quarry’s habits, handling a pack of hounds, complete control of an often-frightened horse and the use of various weapons, including spears and swords to perform the kill. In England, uniquely, deer were also hunted on foot with bow and arrow. This was particularly significant because deer hunting was exclusively an aristocratic sport. On the continent, archery was looked down upon as the preserve of townsmen and the lower ranks of society, but every English nobleman, including the king himself, had to be capable of handling a longbow and crossbow, and skill in the art was highly prized. “I know little of hunting with the bow,” remarked Gaston Phoebus, count of Foix, in southernmost France, who wrote the standard hunting treatise of the late fourteenth century: “if you want to know more, you had best go to England, where it is a way of life.”
¹⁰
The consequences of this English obsession were to be felt at Agincourt.

If hunting introduced young men to some of the physical and mental skills required for a military career, mock combat honed and perfected them. Three hundred years and more since the introduction of the massed charge with couched lance, this form of fighting was still relevant to the battlefield and therefore had to be practised in jousts and tournaments. An international tourneying circuit had existed since at least the twelfth century and young Englishmen eager to make a name for themselves regularly travelled to France, Spain, Portugal and, to a lesser extent, Germany and Italy, to take part in these games. The English borders with France and Scotland were fertile ground for those seeking adventures of this kind because they provided a natural meeting place for knights from enemy nations.
¹¹

Although there is no record of Henry V participating in a public joust or tournament, he must have learnt to fight in such combats, which were organised and supervised by professional heralds and judged by older, more experienced knights; together they enforced a strict set of rules designed to prevent death or serious injury. The joust would have taught him to handle his lance in individual encounters on horseback; the less highly regulated tournament went a stage further, involving groups of combatants on horseback, often beginning with a massed charge with the couched lance, which then gave way to the real business of sword fighting, thereby more closely emulating the experience of genuine battle. He would also have been familiar with a relatively new development, the feat of arms, in which two opponents fought several types of course: a set on horseback with the lance, followed by a set each with the sword, the axe and the dagger, all fought on foot. This training was crucial since it had become accepted practice that the knights and esquires should dismount for battle and stand with the archers, “and always a great number of gentlemen did so in order that the common soldiers might be reassured and fight better.” Philippe de Commynes, who made this comment at the turn of the sixteenth century, also observed that it was Henry V and the English who had introduced this particular tactic to France.
¹²
He was wrong, but it is significant that this was his perception.

The reason why Henry V, unlike his father, does not appear to have taken part in any public forms of mock combat is that he was too busy with the real thing. According to contemporary chivalric treatises, this was actually more praiseworthy. Geoffroi de Charny, for example, who carried the battle standard of France, the oriflamme, at Crécy and died in its defence, wrote in his
Book of Chivalry
that it was honourable to joust, even more honourable to tourney, but most honourable of all to fight in war.
¹³
It was not pursuit of honour that led Henry to begin his professional military career before he reached the age of fourteen: it was necessity. His father’s usurpation of the crown was repeatedly challenged by armed revolt and for at least the first six years of his reign the kingdom was in a state of constant unrest and even open war. Henry’s role in these events was mapped out for him at his father’s coronation in October 1399. Even though he had only celebrated his thirteenth birthday a month previously, he was one of the young men chosen for the customary honour of being knighted on the eve of the coronation. Knighthoods conferred on such occasions were highly prized because they occurred so rarely and because they were accompanied by unusual pageantry and religious ritual. The ceremony took place in the Tower of London, where each candidate took a symbolic bath to wash away his sins, was dressed in white robes to signify purity and a red cloak to represent his willingness to shed his blood, and then spent the night in a vigil of prayer watching over his arms in the chapel. The next day, having heard mass, the candidate’s sword (double-edged to represent justice and loyalty) was girded about his waist, and his gold spurs, symbolising that he would be as swift to obey God’s commandments as his pricked charger, were fastened to his heels. Finally, he received from the new king the
collée
, a light tap with the hand or sword, which was the last blow he was ever to receive without returning it.
¹⁴

Having been admitted to the order of knighthood, as befitted his new princely status, Henry had also borne one of the four swords of state at his father’s coronation: significantly, he chose, or was chosen, to carry the sword representing justice. A few weeks later Parliament officially decreed that he should be known as “Prince of Wales, duke of Aquitaine, Lancaster and Cornwall, earl of Chester, and heir apparent to the kingdom of England.”
¹⁵
These were not simply empty titles: even at this early age, Henry was expected to share the burden of his father’s crown and take personal responsibility for the security and administration of his own domains. When he sought aid to recover Conwy Castle in north Wales from rebel hands, for instance, his father informed him in no uncertain terms that the castle had fallen through the negligence of one of the prince’s officers and it was the prince’s responsibility to recover it.

Henry’s right to two of his most important titles was soon to be challenged. In September 1400 Owain Glyn Dw?246-136?r, lord of Glyndyfrdwy in north Wales, declared himself prince of Wales and began a rebellion that would not be quelled until 1409. In 1402, the dauphin was proclaimed duke of Guienne (the French name for Aquitaine) and his uncle, Louis d’Orléans, launched an aggressive campaign of conquest in the duchy.
¹⁶
Though the threat to Aquitaine was as great as that to Wales, the problems of the rebellious principality had to take precedence since they were literally closer to home.

Medieval Wales was a country united by language but physically divided in two. The Normans, demonstrating yet again their remarkable capacity for private enterprise, aggression and colonisation, had extended their conquest of England into south Wales by the early years of the twelfth century, but their cavalry tactics were inappropriate for the mountainous north. This part of the country therefore retained its independence and its distinctive Celtic customs until the end of the thirteenth century. Edward I’s conquest of north Wales was as ruthless and efficient as that of the Normans in the south: the native Welsh were expelled to make way for the building of castles and new towns, which were colonised by English settlers, and all public offices were put into English hands. As late as 1402, in response to petitions from the House of Commons, Henry IV’s Parliament was still enacting racially discriminatory legislation that prohibited Welshmen from holding office in Wales or from acting as deputies and even from purchasing lands or properties within English boroughs in Wales.
¹⁷