The Plantagenets: The Kings That Made Britain (19 page)

1400–4

It was one thing to get rid of King Richard but quite another to persuade everyone to accept King Henry. There was no disguising the fact that the man who now wore the crown was a usurper. Much as Richard had been unpopular, many Englishmen resented the way he had been removed, and there were some who persisted in believing that he was still alive.

Disruption in England frequently encouraged freedom fighters in Scotland and Wales, and in the closing weeks of 1399 Henry led an army into Scotland in response to serious border raids. As usual, the Scots offered no fixed battle. On
his way back from the border, Henry learned that a Welsh champion, Owain Glyn Dwr, had proclaimed himself Prince of Wales and raised much of northern and central Wales against English rule, and an inconclusive campaign in the autumn of 1400 failed to suppress the rebellion. The French also refused to acknowledge the change of regime in England. There were arguments about the return of Isabella, the late king’s young widow, or, more specifically, her dowry. She eventually returned to France – minus the dowry – in 1401. Charles VI’s recurrent bouts of insanity – he sometimes insisted that he was made of glass and should not be moved – placed real power in the hands of the dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, who vied for supremacy. At first, the anti-English Orleans had the upper hand, and it was he who arranged in January 1401 for Prince Louis, Charles’s heir (dauphin) to be made Duke of Aquitaine. The following year he concluded a new treaty with Scotland and, in 1403, sent troops to invade Aquitaine. Throughout these years there was running naval warfare in the Channel.

War on three fronts raised acute financial problems for Henry, but, as usual, when he approached parliament they raised issues of court expenditure. The last thing the king needed was civil war with his own nobles, but that is what now broke out. Having embraced the principle ‘might is right’, Henry laid his occupation of the throne open to challenge. The Percys were the dominant family in the north – Richard had made Henry Percy Earl of Northumberland – and Henry had relied heavily on the earl and his kinsmen during his bid for power. He rewarded them handsomely,
not only lavishing them with lands and offices but also relying on the earl as his main adviser. His brother, Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester, was brought onto the king’s council and placed in charge of naval affairs. Northumberland’s son, Henry, known as Hotspur because of his vigorous belligerence in dealing with Scottish marauders, became the major administrator of royal authority in Cheshire and north Wales. In all, the king relied heavily on this clan in dealing with difficulties on the Scottish and Welsh borders.

In the autumn of 1402 the Earl of Douglas launched a major raid deep into England. Northumberland and his son intercepted the Scots at Humbleton Hill, in the Cheviots, near Wooler, and during the battle English archers again proved their worth, and the Scottish force was all but annihilated. This convincing victory showed up Henry IV’s earlier less-than-glorious military leadership and, more importantly, led to a serious dispute between the king and his generals.

The main cause of the Percys disaffection was the lack of financial support they received for their military action. They could, reasonably, claim that they were providing loyal and valuable service that was not being recognized or recompensed. Henry, far from being alert to the importance of keeping the Percys close to the throne, seems to have gone out of his way to antagonize them. Hotspur had taken Douglas prisoner at Humbleton Hill and claimed the right personally to receive ransom for him, but Henry insisted that the Scottish lord be handed over to him.

Then, when young Percy asked for permission to ransom
his own brother-in-law, Sir Edmund Mortimer, currently being held captive by Glyn Dwr, this, too, was refused. The king had good reason not to see Mortimer set at liberty: Edmund belonged to a family with a better claim to the crown, and Henry suspected that he might, in fact, be intriguing with Glyn Dwr. To prevent Mortimer making trouble he sent men to seize all his plate and jewels. At the parliament in October Hotspur and the king had a fierce argument. Henry denounced the young Percy as a traitor and drew his dagger against him. At this Hotspur stalked out, shouting, ‘Not here, but in the field!’ Relations were patched up for the time being, but in November Mortimer, either stung by Henry’s action or simply revealing himself in his true colours, married Glyn Dwr’s daughter. A month later he issued a call to all his friends to join him in an attempt either to restore Richard, should he still be alive, or to place his own young nephew, Edmund, Earl of March, on the throne.

In July 1403 Hotspur responded to this appeal and led a small army to the Welsh border in order to make common cause with the self-styled Prince of Wales against Henry. He was joined by his uncle, the Earl of Worcester. The king responded quickly, marching across country to face the Percys before they could link up with their Welsh allies. He reached Shrewsbury before them, and on 21 July a decisive battle was fought in the hamlet of Berwick, to the northwest of the town.

It was the speed and cunning of King Henry’s response that was the undoing of the rebels. Had he delayed another
day he would have faced the combined forces, not only of Hotspur and Glyn Dwr, but also of the Earl of Northumberland, who was racing across country to come to his son’s aid. Hotspur’s men actually gained an early initiative, but their leader was severely wounded when he raised his visor and an arrow struck him in the face. Either this killed him or disabled him so severely that he fell soon afterwards. That was really the end of the battle. According to one chronicler, the king had taken care to avoid a similar fate by sending two knights into battle wearing armour identical to his own. The Earl of Douglas, fighting alongside Hotspur, reputedly exclaimed, ‘Have I not slain two king Henries with my own hand? ’Tis an evil hour for us that a third yet lives to be our victor.’
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Thomas of Worcester was captured and executed immediately after the battle. Northumberland surrendered, was arrested, tried for treason but found guilty only of the lesser charge of trespass. The king pardoned him but stripped him of several of his offices. Henry was in a dilemma: he knew that Percy was nursing thoughts of revenge but he needed him to keep the Scots at bay and he knew also that throughout much of the north people felt a greater loyalty to Northumberland than to the king.

With so many of the magnates less than enthusiastic about the new regime, Henry needed all the support he could get. He was careful to establish good relations with church leaders. The bishops had for some years been pressing for heresy to be made a capital crime, as it was in several continental countries, but lay parliamentarians had been reluctant to place the determination of life and death in the
hands of the clergy. In the parliament that met during the early months of 1401 Archbishop Arundel, to whom Henry had much cause to be grateful, renewed his appeal, and the king now gave his consent to the statute
De Heretico Comburendo
. This established that any heretic found guilty in a church court who recanted but later abjured was to be handed over to the ‘secular arm’ (the king’s officers) who, ‘Shall receive, and them before the people in an high place cause to be burnt, that such punishment might strike fear into the minds of others, whereby no such wicked doctrine and heretical and erroneous opinions, against the Catholic faith, Christian law, and determination of the holy church … be sustained or in any way suffered.’
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There was no delay in putting this law into practice. In April 1399 William Sautre, a Norfolk priest, had been arrested and tried as a heretic. He had confessed his fault, done penance and promised never to preach unorthodox doctrines again. Two years later he was arrested as a relapsed heretic and, in February 1401, handed over for the dire punishment to be carried out.

Meanwhile, Henry was trying to raise his international standing. In 1401 he married his daughter, Blanche, to Ludwig of the Rhine, grandson of the emperor. Two years later he received as his own bride in Winchester Cathedral Joan, the widow of John de Montfort, Duke of Brittany, who was still maintaining his independence from the French crown. These alliances were expensive but they did provide Henry with useful allies against France, which became more urgent after June 1404, when Glyn Dwr made a treaty with
the Duke of Orleans, who promised to supply troops for the invasion of England.

Maintaining armies against internal and external foes, contracting diplomatic marriages and suffering the loss of customs revenue due to piracy brought the government close to bankruptcy, and Henry had to call a parliament at Coventry in October 1404. The parliament gained the nickname of the ‘Unlearned’ or ‘Lawless Parliament’ because Henry decreed that no legal experts should be elected to the Commons. The writ insisted: ‘No Sheriff to be returned, nor any apprentice nor other person at law.’ They were, the king said, ‘troublesome’ – in other words, their knowledge of the law enabled them to challenge his right to the crown. However, the king could not prevent members criticizing court expenditure, and the taxes they granted were dependent upon accounts being presented to two independent treasurers whose job it was to check that money was being spent on defence of the realm and not on the royal household.

1405–6

Although the Earl of Northumberland had been restored to favour, the personal losses he had sustained and the decline in his influence at court estranged him from the king. Early in 1405 he re-established contact with Glyn Dwr and Mortimer, and they planned further rebellion. It involved the kidnapping of the young Earl of March, whom Henry kept in honourable confinement at Windsor, proclaiming him the rightful king and dividing the nation between
Northumberland, Mortimer and Glyn Dwr. The first part of the plan went well: the Earl of March was successfully snatched. Once again, however, the king acted swiftly and recaptured the boy en route for Wales after a few days. Then, in May, as Henry was preparing another Welsh campaign, he heard that Northumberland, Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York, and Thomas Mowbray, the Earl Marshal, were gathering their forces in the north. Scrope had papers pinned to the doors of all the York churches denouncing Henry as a usurper, a wastrel and a breaker of promises. The king sent the Earl of Westmorland, a bitter enemy of the Percys, to intercept the rebels. He persuaded Scrope and Mowbray to disband their army, giving assurances that their grievances would be addressed, then he promptly arrested them. When Henry arrived in York he had the two men tried and condemned, and he personally led them outside the city to the place of execution (8 June).

Henry Percy fled into Scotland. Henry, meanwhile, had fallen ill, and poor health was to dog him intermittently for the rest of his life. At the end of the summer, however, he was fit enough to campaign in Wales, but the Glyn Dwr problem remained unresolved and was intensified by the arrival of French troops, sent to aid the rebels. In August 1405 2,500 French soldiers landed at Milford Haven, and they remained in Wales until March 1406. With their support, Glyn Dwr was able to gain control of southern Wales and cross the border towards Worcester. The Earl of Northumberland joined his former allies there. However, when the French left, disappointed by the lack of dissident Englishmen
ready to join their cause, the tide of war turned. Northumberland hurried back to France to seek more aid from Orleans, but the duke was too involved in his own problems to render fresh assistance. (He was assassinated by agents of the Duke of Burgundy the following year.)

The parliament that assembled on 1 March 1406 was known as the Long Parliament because it remained in almost continuous session until 22 December. The main reason for this was another breakdown in the king’s health. Henry seems to have suffered from various illnesses, some psychosomatic, and one monastic chronicler asserted that Henry had been struck down with leprosy for having Archbishop Scrope executed. While there is no basis for this, it is very likely that the insecurity of his position and the constant criticisms of those who regarded him as a usurper did not help his mental condition. In May Henry asked for a permanent council to help him carry the heavy burden of government, and a total of 17 prominent lay and ecclesiastical lords were appointed.

The burning issue was, as always, finance. Between 1399 and 1404 six treasurers had come and gone, each unable to balance the books. Parliament produced a comprehensive programme for the reform of the royal finances and set up a smaller council, headed by Prince Henry (now 19 years old) specifically to oversee this aspect of government. Young Henry was now gathering a considerable personal following. He had been appointed Prince of Wales in 1399 and had been involved in several campaigns against Glyn Dwr, and many people now looked to the heir rather than the ailing
and not spectacularly successful king. The prince was impatient for more authority and had his own ideas about the running of the country. He was a vigorous young man, an already experienced field commander and a prince untainted with the stigma of having usurped the crown.

All was not gloom and despondency for the semi-invalid king, however. In 1406 his younger daughter was married to Eric VII of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. In the same year, Prince James, heir to the Scottish throne, was captured while en route to France. He was destined to remain a prisoner in England for 18 years.

1407–13

Henry might well have thought it ironic that several of his more tenacious problems resolved themselves at a time when his own powers were failing. The death of Orleans and the dominance of the Duke of Burgundy over the mentally ill French king were good news. Early in 1408 the rebellion of the Percys finally came to an end. The Earl of Northumberland had returned to Scotland. In February he crossed the border with a small army, hoping its ranks would be swelled by English malcontents, but this did not happen, nor was Glyn Dwr, whose fortunes were on the wane, able to come to his aid. On a snow-swept Bramham Moor, south of Wetherby, he met a force of Yorkshire levies assembled by the sheriff, Thomas Rokeby. During the scrappy battle that followed Northumberland was killed. The next year, Mortimer, last of the major English rebels, died during the siege
of Harlech Castle. Owain Glyn Dwr withdrew into the mountains of north Wales and ceased to be a serious threat.