The Monks of War (30 page)

In June 1433 the Regent returned to England, to deny before Parliament rumours that he was incompetent and neglectful. He did so to such effect that in November the Commons complimented him on his management of affairs in France where, they claimed, he enjoyed obedience ‘right tender, young and green’, and they noted how he had ‘exposed his person to the labour and adventure of war, as the poorest knight or gentleman there in the King’s service, and achieved many great and fair things, worthy to be had in perpetual remembrance ; and especially the battle of Verneuil, which was the greatest deed done by Englishmen in our days, save the battle of Agincourt’. Both Houses begged Bedford to stay in England as the King’s chief counsellor. He accepted. Yet, despite his popularity, he was unable to extract fresh money for the War which had now come to be regarded as a burden.

Bedford ordered a careful investigation into the royal finances. This revealed that the deficit for 1433 was nearly £22,000, and that £57,000 had been spent on war; total debts amounted to £64,000—almost three times the annual revenue. He at once cut down the pay of officials, including his own, and begged Parliament—unsuccessfully —to vote a yearly sum which would remove the threat of state bankruptcy. The agricultural depression and a decline in overseas trade had lessened the yield from taxation, and diminished revenues were a far greater threat to the Lancastrian dual monarchy than any Joan of Arc.

The War was much more expensive than it had been in Edward III’s time. Armour and weapons were increasingly elaborate, while large numbers of the new big guns had become indispensable for siege warfare both in attack and defence. Moreover the maintenance of garrisons was a constant drain : Calais alone cost nearly £17,000, half the government’s total revenue. It required a peace-time strength of 780 men, raised to 1,150 in war-time. Again and again Captains of Calais had to pay starving troops out of their own pockets; there was a mutiny in 1431 and another in 1441. There must have been similar mutinies in many garrisons. A significant number of men deserted and became brigands.

Yet there was no difficulty in finding soldiers if one had the money to pay them. Every English magnate possessed his own private army, recruited from what has been described as ‘a new and potentially dangerous type of semi-noble’ who had acquired a little wealth and status during the War and who was paid wages. Such armies were often surprisingly large; in 1453 the Earl of Devon, waging a personal war in the West country against Lord Bonville (a former Seneschal of Guyenne), is said to have mustered 800 horse and 4,000 foot. Troops like this were far from untried ; violence was part of everyday life under the weak régime of Henry VI, and readers of
The Paston Letters
will know how often great men had recourse to armed robbery and intimidation. Even so, the best pickings were still to be had in France.

A partnership document between two of the new semi-nobles, the esquires John Winter and Nicholas Molyneux, has survived from 1421. They swore in a church at Harfleur to be ‘brothers in arms’. Should one be taken prisoner the other must ransom him, providing the money needed did not exceed 6,000 gold
saluts
(£1,000). If it were more, the one who remained free was to surrender himself as a hostage for the other to go home and raise the additional money. More optimistically they promised to share ‘all the profits [from war] which by God’s grace they shall gain’, and to send them back to London for safe-keeping in a coffer at a church in Cheapside of which each had a key; ‘in which coffer shall be kept such gold, silver and plate as each or both of them may wish to keep to purchase lands in the realm of England’. When they retired everything was to be divided between them. If one were killed, the survivor was to inherit the whole, but must allow a sixth to his brother’s widow and pay for his children’s schooling, allowing them £20 a year for life. The partnership prospered. As late as 1436 they were still sending money home to buy manors and even bought a pub—the Boar’s Head in Southwark (something of a medieval Claridges), which Winter seems to have managed. Molyneux obtained a lucrative post at Rouen—Master of the
Chambre des Comptes
—and when Normandy fell was able to salvage something from the wreck.

The year 1434 began well for the English, the Earl of Arundel operating with considerable success in Anjou and Maine as far as the Loire. Lord Talbot—who had been exchanged for Poton de Xaintrailles—was even more successful, taking Gisors, Joigny, Beaumont, Creil, Clermont and Saint-Valery. But Lord Scales and Lord Willoughby failed to overcome the indomitable garrison of Mont-Saint-Michel.

Then Bedford received a letter from the Provost of Paris, saying that unless he came back soon the capital was lost. When he returned in July he was greeted with news of a general rising by the Norman peasants against English garrisons; even Caen and Bayeux were threatened. It had been provoked by Richard Venables (see p. 194), who had massacred the entire village of Vicques near Falaise. Raising a special subsidy from the Estates, the Regent organized a full-scale military operation against Venables who, with his second-in-command Waterhouse, was captured, brought to Rouen and hanged. Bedford hoped that this would reassure the peasants, but in August another English band perpetrated a similar massacre at the village of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives. The peasants fought on, using against the English the weapons supplied to them by the Regent for their protection. Eventually he managed to crush them, but it must have been a sad blow to find such enmity in a province which was the heart of the dual monarchy.

More money was needed desperately. The Regent summoned the Estates of Normandy, beseeching their help, and they voted 344,000
livres tournois,
more than ever before, but even this was not enough. The garrisons alone were costing 250,000
livres
a year, while there were expenses arising from the peasants’ revolt—Arundel and the troops putting them down had to be paid. Even before he had left England, Bedford had submitted a thoroughly gloomy report to the Council, pointing out that ‘the press of war’ had driven the peasants ‘to an extreme poverty such as they may not long endure’ because they dared not plough their lands, tend their vines or feed their livestock. But even so he was not without hope, stressing that the French of the dual monarchy were by and large loyal to King Henry. ‘Throughout the years of my service there I have found the multitude of your subjects there as well disposed and as desirous to keep their faith and truth to your Highness as any people ever was.’ He suggested three positive measures. First, that the Duchy of Lancaster’s revenues (separate from those of the Crown) should be diverted to the French war, and in particular to maintaining 200 men-at-arms and 600 archers. Second, that the garrisons of Calais and the Calais March, who were not in the front line, should be combined and employed as a mobile reserve. Third, that provided that these two proposals were adopted, he would maintain another 200 men-at-arms and another 600 archers from his personal resources.

In December Bedford returned to Paris where the misery was greater than ever and a further terrible winter had set in —‘day and night the snow never stopped falling ... never were frost and snow so bitter’. The vines and the fruit trees perished. Wine, flour and all food were impossibly dear. The city was now so depopulated that empty houses were being pulled down for firewood. In February 1435 the Regent left Paris for the last time.

The Duke of Burgundy was now preparing to withdraw his support from the English. He was anxious not to appear treacherous, so his lawyers found a legal quibble in the Treaty of Troyes : Henry V, they said, could have handed down the French Crown had he inherited it himself, but his son could not inherit it directly from Charles VI. In February 1435 Philip of Burgundy met the Duke of Bourbon and other Dauphinists at Nevers, where with noticeable friendliness it was agreed that a conference between Burgundians, Dauphinists and English should be held at Arras in the summer to arrange a general settlement.

Philippe Contamine makes the point that the Hundred Years War saw quite as many conferences as it did battles, sieges and
chevauchées.
These usually took place at a border town, such as Leulinghen or Gravelines, or at somewhere neutral like Avignon, though occasionally they were held in one of the protagonist’s territories and even in London or Paris. Often the delegations of both sides were led by a Prince of the Blood, who brought a large staff of officials and a vast retinue of servants, together with wagon-loads of furniture, plate and provisions. There were formal orations in Latin, public banquets and private interviews in addition to round-table negotiations.

When the congress at Arras began in August, Bedford who was seriously ill at Rouen, was ready to make territorial concessions but would not compromise on his nephew’s claim to the throne of France ; the English envoys were instructed to state that this was a matter too sacred for discussion—Henry derived his right from God. The Regent also insisted that Normandy belonged to King Henry and could not be held as a fief from Charles. On 5 September, after six weeks of debate during which Philip argued so energetically that the sweat ran down his face, Cardinal Beaufort led the entire English delegation out of Arras without having reached any agreement. They suspected, with justice, that ‘King Charles and the Duke of Burgundy were growing cordial towards each other’.

Just over a week later, on 14 September 1435, John, Duke of Bedford died at Rouen. ‘Noble in birth and worth ; wise, liberal, feared and loved’, was the epitaph bestowed on him by the Bourgeois of Paris. The Regent is generally pitied by historians as a gifted statesman and soldier who wasted his life in a futile endeavour. Yet he might well have succeeded. The Dauphin very nearly abdicated, and had he done so the next Valois claimant, Charles of Orleans, was a prisoner in England. Moreover if Duke Philip had been clear-sighted he would surely have realized that his best hope lay with the English, for a strong Valois monarchy must inevitably destroy Burgundy. The structure which Bedford built with such limited resources was strong enough to survive his death by fifteen years. Beyond question he was a very remarkable, indeed a very great, Anglo-Frenchman.

The Regent was buried under a fine tomb in the chancel of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in his beloved city of Rouen. Many years later someone suggested to Charles VII’s son that the monument should be demolished. Louis XI replied : ‘In his lifetime neither my father nor yours, for all their might, could make him budge one foot ... Let his body rest.’ The King added : ‘I account it an honour to have him remain in my domains.’ The tomb has long since vanished, but Bedford still lies in Rouen Cathedral.

10

‘Sad Tidings’ 1435-1450

Sad tidings bring I to you out of France, Of loss, of slaughter and discomfiture.

King Henry VI

And this same Wednesday was it told that Shirburgh is goon and we have not now a foote of londe in Normandie.

The Paston Letters

On 20 September 1435, less than a week after Bedford’s death, Charles VII and Philip of Burgundy signed the Treaty of Arras. In return for recognizing Charles as King of France, Philip received Macon, Auxerre and Ponthieu, together with the Somme towns and the royal lands north of that river (all territories which he already occupied). Charles ended his alliance with the Emperor and formally denied any part in the murder of Philip’s father, promising to punish the surviving assassins. He also agreed to erect a monument to the late Duke and have Masses said for his soul. In effect he abandoned what was left of the Armagnac party ; France was to be made whole, and later an edict ordered that anyone found guilty of using the names ‘Burgundian’ or ‘Armagnac’ should have his tongue pierced with a red-hot iron.

The Treaty was to prove a terrible mistake for the Burgundians—it meant not only the ruin of the dual monarchy but ultimately that of Burgundy too. Perhaps Philip thought Charles VII would be more dependent on him than Henry VI ; if so, he miscalculated, for Charles hated him. The two advisers who persuaded the Duke to abandon the English, Nicholas Rolin and Anthoine de Croy, were undoubtedly in Charles’s pay. One day Philip was to realize his blunder and marry his only (legitimate) son to an English princess.

England was shattered by Duke Philip’s betrayal. When Henry VI received a letter from him in which he was not addressed as Philip’s sovereign, the tears rolled down his cheeks. In London, mobs lynched Philip’s merchants and sang rude songs about the ‘false, forsworn Duke’. Counsellors like Cardinal Beaufort knew very well that the country could not continue the War against such odds, but did not see how to end it without enraging all England—the claim to the French throne might have been abandoned in exchange for Normandy and Guyenne in full sovereignty, if only Henry V had not made such a compromise morally impossible. The realism of Beaufort—the ‘luxury-loving prelate who was the favourite of the aristocracy’ as Perroy terms him—may have been preferred by certain magnates, but the House of Commons supported the Duke of Gloucester who led a War party. The ‘Good Duke Humphrey’, affable and charming, was also the darling of the London mob. Although frivolous and unstable, he had none the less fought at Agincourt and played an important role in the conquest of Normandy, and the ‘son, brother and uncle of Kings’ (as he signed himself) was both senior Prince of the Blood and heir presumptive. His position was made even stronger by Bedford’s death. But in 1435 Henry VI came of age at sixteen. He was completely under the thumb of the Beauforts and henceforward, despite loud protests, Gloucester had little influence on government policy.