Agincourt (47 page)

All those who had prisoners were obliged to enter into bonds with the king to pay him his portion of their ransoms. This could be costly. One of his retainers, Sir Henry Huse, for example, had to account for nine prisoners from Beauce, Eu, Vimeu, Beaugency and Abbeville in his possession: on 16 January 1416 he agreed to pay 200 marks to the king’s treasurer at Calais by midsummer, giving him five months to collect the sum from his prisoners’ families or raise it by other means. Another of the king’s retainers, William Trussell, esquire, had captured nine prisoners at Agincourt, whose ransoms ranged in value from £6 13s 4d to £17 6s 8d: his bond obliged him to pay the king £40.
¹⁸

Although both Huse and Trussell could expect to receive twice as much as the king for their personal cut of the ransoms, these were still relatively small amounts compared to the sums that others received for their prisoners. A bundle of forty-nine bonds preserved among the exchequer records lists individual ransoms worth £48 6s 8d, £55 11s 4d and even £163 6s 8d (the last almost $108,868 today). Yet these figures, too, pale by comparison to the phenomenal sums commanded for the great princes who had been captured at Agincourt. Such men belonged to the king as of right, and he was under no legal obligation to compensate their captors. Nevertheless, he clearly did so, for Sir John Grey of Ruthin, who had indented to serve with the relatively modest retinue of fifteen men-at-arms and forty-five foot archers, found himself 1000 marks ($444,360) richer after capturing Charles, count of Eu, and selling him to the king.
¹⁹
This was not merely a financial speculation on the king’s part, for he had no intention of ransoming the count: like the dukes of Bourbon and Orléans, Marshal Boucicaut, Arthur, count of Richemont, and Raoul de Gaucourt, he was more valuable as a prisoner.

On 16 November, five days after de Gaucourt and his fellow-defenders of Harfleur had surrendered themselves at Calais, the king and his prisoners, including the princes captured at Agincourt, boarded ship and set sail for England.
²⁰
The homecoming was an altogether quieter and humbler affair than the original invasion. The great fleet that had brought the English to France had disbanded many weeks earlier and, though the king had undertaken to pay for the return crossing, he no longer had the means to take his army back with him
en masse
. Instead, the veterans of the campaign had to find their own passage across the Channel. Each man was allowed two shillings for his own fare, together with a further two shillings for each horse, and it was left to the captains of the retinues to make the necessary arrangements privately with ship-owners and masters visiting the port.

The greatest part of the victorious army thus made its way back to England from Calais without flourish or fanfare. The men slipped quietly into the Cinque Ports in dribs and drabs, before dispersing to their homes in towns, villages and farmsteads the length and breadth of the country. The hero’s welcome was reserved for their monarch. His passage home was marred by violent late fall storms, in which, it was said, two ships carrying Sir John Cornewaille’s men were lost with all hands, and others, carrying prisoners, were driven ashore on the Zeeland coast. Whether or not it was true that the king’s iron constitution and cheerful demeanour were the envy and admiration of the French prisoners on board his ship, the latter, particularly those still suffering from dysentery, must have suffered horribly during the many hours it took to effect the crossing. They landed at Dover, in a great snowstorm, just before nightfall.
²¹

News of Henry’s return spread swiftly, and when he set out for London the following morning, he found his road already lined with cheering crowds. His route naturally took him through Canterbury, but it was inconceivable that so pious a king could simply pass through the town without pausing to give thanks for the success of his campaign at England’s premier cathedral. His arrival was obviously expected, for he was met by Henry Chichele, archbishop of Canterbury, at the head of a long procession of clergymen, who welcomed him and escorted him to the cathedral.

There was a double significance to this visit. Henry’s official purpose was to pay his devotions and make offerings at the great shrine of St Thomas Becket in the Trinity Chapel behind the high altar of the cathedral. Flanking that shrine, however, were the tombs of two of Henry’s own forebears. On one side was that of the great warrior Edward, the Black Prince, with its magnificent gilded and armour-clad effigy, his surcoat emblazoned with the quartered arms of England and France, and his feet bearing the spurs he won at the battle of Crécy: over this tomb, as yet another reminder of his victories at Crécy and Poitiers, hung his funeral achievements, the helm with its lion crest, shield, gauntlets and coat armour he had worn to battle.
²²

On the other side of the shrine was the tomb of Henry’s father, Henry IV, who had been interred there just over two and a half years earlier. Though equally imposing in its own way, this tomb was very different from that of the warrior prince: the effigy, carved from marble, portrayed the king in civilian clothing and with a remarkably realistic and care-worn face, which must have been drawn from life. The only intimation of his royal stature was his gilded crown, the “crown Henry” or “Lancaster crown,” the original of which his son had just pawned to his brother, the duke of Clarence, as security for his wages for the Agincourt campaign.
²³

The presence of the tombs of the Black Prince and Henry IV on either side of St Thomas Becket’s shrine turned what might otherwise have been just an act of simple piety and thanksgiving into an altogether more momentous affair. As the victor of Agincourt, Henry V had won the right to take his place alongside the victor of Crécy and Poitiers. Perhaps more importantly, he had proved that he had been chosen by God to be the instrument of His will. The crime of his father’s usurpation and the long shadow it had cast over the legitimacy of the Lancastrian kingship had been wiped out. Irrespective of the justice of his claims to the throne of France, no one could doubt any longer that Henry V was indeed, by the grace of God, king of England.

After visiting the cathedral, Henry made a second pilgrimage to the nearby church of St Augustine’s Abbey, to give thanks at the tomb of the cathedral’s founder and first archbishop. Having spent one, or possibly two nights as the guest of the abbot and his monks, he then set out once more for London. His progress was slow and it was not until six days after landing at Dover that the royal party finally arrived at the king’s manor of Eltham on the outskirts of the city. The leisurely pace was deliberate, for it allowed the citizens time to complete their arrangements for the great pageant that was to mark his triumphal return. Londoners, who had contributed so much to the king’s campaign in terms of finance, shipping and men, had followed his campaign with understandable nervousness. The absence of news during his march from Harfleur had been a cause of particular tension, especially since, on the very day of the battle of Agincourt, “a lamentable report, replete with sadness, and cause for endless sorrow, had alarmed the community throughout all the City, in the boundless grief that it caused.” It took four days for news of the English victory to filter through, reaching London only on the day that the king himself entered Calais.
²⁴
That same day, 29 October, was the customary occasion for the newly elected mayor to ride to Westminster Palace to be admitted formally to his office and sworn in before the barons of the exchequer. On learning the joyful news, Nicholas Wottone, the new mayor, decided to break with precedent. With his aldermen and “an immense number of the Commonalty of the citizens of the city,” he went “like pilgrims on foot” to Westminster Abbey. There, in the presence of Henry’s stepmother, Joan of Navarre, a host of lords spiritual and temporal, and some of the more substantial citizens, he made “devout thanksgiving, with due solemnity.” Only after having given their due to God, his saints and especially “Edward, the glorious Confessor, whose body lies interred at Westminster,” did he proceed to Westminster Palace to complete his inauguration. Always swift to guard their civic privileges, the mayor and aldermen went to great lengths to ensure that the reasons for this break with tradition were recorded for posterity, so that no future mayor should feel it incumbent upon himself to walk humbly, rather than ride in pomp, to Westminster.
²⁵

The spontaneous celebrations that greeted the news of Agincourt were as nothing compared to those which hailed the return of the victorious king. London was accustomed to festivities on a grand scale: royal progresses, coronations, jousts and tournaments, ceremonies to welcome or honour visiting dignitaries, had all been marked by processions through the streets, the ringing of church bells, allegorical and heraldic displays. On such occasions, too, it was customary for the public water pipes and fountains to run with wine, which no doubt encouraged a convivial atmosphere. The citizens had had almost a month to prepare for this event and the result was as elaborate and visually stunning a pageant as medieval ingenuity could devise. At first light on Saturday 23 November, the mayor and twenty-four aldermen rode four miles out of the city, as far as the heights of Blackheath, to meet the king. They were clad in their finest scarlet and accompanied by huge numbers of citizens, all dressed in red robes with parti-coloured hoods of red and white, or black and white. Each one proudly wore the distinctive and “richly fashioned badge” that marked his status as a member of one of the great London guilds and distinguished him from his fellows in other crafts or trades. At about ten in the morning, the king arrived, bringing with him only a modest personal retinue, but one that pointedly included his French prisoners. After formally congratulating him and thanking him “for the victory he had gained and for his efforts on behalf of the common weal,” the citizens formed themselves up into a procession and, to the sound of trumpets, rode off to escort him in triumph to the capital.
²⁶

About a mile from the city, at St Thomas Waterings, just outside Southwark, the abbot of Bermondsey and a procession of London clergymen were waiting to receive the king. Bearing the holy relics, crosses and banners of their churches, they sang the
Te Deum
and acclaimed him (in Latin) with cries of “Hail, flower of the English and of the world, knight of Christ!”
²⁷
Accompanied by an ever-growing train, Henry now approached the tower at the entrance to London Bridge, which marked the city boundary. Here two gigantic allegorical figures bearing the royal arms had been erected side by side, “like guards outside the gate.” The male was armed with an axe in one hand and a lance, from which dangled the keys of the city, in the other; the female wore a scarlet mantle and “adornments appropriate to her sex.” To the chaplain, viewing this display with barely concealed wonder, “they were like a man and his wife who, in their richest attire, were bent upon seeing the eagerly awaited face of their lord and welcoming him with abundant praise.” (The more martial Adam of Usk was merely struck by their size, admiring the breadth of the enormous axe, “by which . . . an entire army might be slaughtered,” and the physical bulk of the woman, which “was in truth fit not only to spawn gigantic demons, but also to bring forth the towers of hell.”) From every rampart of the gatehouse tower hung the royal coat of arms and blazoned across its front wall was the legend “City of the King of Justice”; trumpeters and horn-players stationed within and on the tower made the place ring with their fanfares to welcome the king.
²⁸

As the royal party approached the drawbridge at the centre of the bridge, they saw that two large wooden pillars or turrets had been erected and hung with linen cloth, skilfully painted to give the appearance of marble. On one stood the figure of an antelope (the king’s personal badge) with a shield of the royal arms round its neck and a royal sceptre cradled in its forefoot. On the other stood the lion of England holding the royal standard in its paw. At the far end of the drawbridge, and straddling the route, was another tower of similar construction whose centrepiece was a statue of St George, fully armed except for his triumphal helm and his shield, which were displayed on either side of him. His right hand rested on the hilt of his sword, in his left he bore a scroll with the legend “Honor and glory be to God alone!” and on his head he wore the ancient symbol of victory, the laurel crown. A multitude of angel choirs—little boys dressed up in white robes and wings, with gold-painted faces, and laurel leaves wound through their hair—sang the anthem “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” as the king approached.
²⁹

Another choir, this time of Old Testament prophets, “with venerable white hair, in tunicles and golden copes, their heads wrapped and turbaned with gold and crimson,” was waiting for the king at Cornhill, where the water storage tower had been draped in crimson cloth and cunningly disguised as a great pavilion. Here again, the arms of St George, St Edward and St Edmund, the saints under whose patronage the campaign had been fought, were prominently displayed, together with those of England and of the king himself. As Henry rode past, the “prophets” chanted Psalm 98, “O sing unto the Lord a new song: for he hath done marvellous things,” and released a huge flock of little birds, “of which some descended on to the king’s breast, some settled upon his shoulders, and some circled around in twisting flight.”
³⁰

The water storage tower at the entrance to Cheapside, which had been filled with wine, had been similarly draped with cloth and adorned with shields bearing the arms of the city. Beneath its awnings stood the twelve apostles and, rather less obviously identifiable, the twelve martyrs and confessors of the English royal line, “girt about the loins with golden belts, with sceptres in their hands, crowns upon their heads, and their emblems of sanctity plain to see.” These, too, greeted the king by sweetly singing the appropriate verse from Psalm 44, “But it is thou that savest us from our enemies: and puttest them to confusion that hate us.” Then, in a deft biblical allusion that would not have been lost upon Henry V, they offered him wafers of bread, mixed with wafers of silver, and wine drawn from the spouts of the water tower, just as Melchizedek, king of Salem, had done for Abraham, when he returned from his victory over the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah.
³¹
(Though they had already been lectured on the subject of their national vices and moral failings by Henry, one wonders how his French prisoners must have reacted to being equated so publicly with the most notorious of all biblical sinners.)