Henry V as Warlord (17 page)

The king was tireless in his attention to finance, obtaining £136,000 from taxes, a remarkable achievement. He also raised loans wherever he could. He borrowed 21,000 marks (£14,000) from Beaufort on the security of his best crown, and another large sum from the City on a jewelled collar. Lesser sums, some very small, were secured from prelates and abbots, from magnates and squires, from city corporations and merchants, on the security of anything precious in the royal coffers, whether crowns, jewels, relics or altar plate. He had learnt this technique during the Welsh war. There were the usual problems of provisions, munitions and logistics. Early in 1417 the sheriffs were instructed to have six wing feathers plucked from every goose in their county and sent to depots, while bow staves and arrows were ordered by the barrel.

During the king’s absence England had remained astonishingly peaceful under the regency of John, Duke of Bedford. Henry’s restoration of law and order had held up very well, and after Agincourt his reputation ensured its survival. Such a hero no longer had anything to fear from Ricardians or Lollards, even though a pseudo-Richard was still alive in Scotland and though John Oldcastle still roamed the Welsh border. The Scots regent was not going to give trouble when his king was a prisoner in England while Wales was a cowed and broken land. Henry felt sufficiently secure to restore the Earl of Northumberland to all his honours and estates. He had no cause to worry about leaving his realm for a second time in the hands of so capable a regent as Bedford.

Nevertheless there was an incident in 1416 which, if scarcely dangerous, must have been extremely distasteful to the king. In April in the Court of King’s Bench a canon of Wells Cathedral, Richard Bruton, was charged with treasonable talk. He had told one of his tenants that Henry was not the real King of England and that his father had had no right to the crown. Bruton had also said that he thoroughly approved of what Scrope and his friends had tried to do, and that he himself was ready to contribute £6,000 towards deposing Henry. Admittedly this conversation had taken place on 14 October 1415, before Agincourt, but it was an uncomfortable reminder that many Englishmen had reservations about the right of the House of Lancaster to rule over them.
⁵

Henry’s brothers ranked first in his team of commanders though their capabilities varied considerably. Aggressive and impetuous, Thomas of Clarence was the team’s Murat – essentially a dashing cavalryman who was ideal for the attack or spearheading unexpected thrusts into enemy territory, but whose grasp of strategy and tactics was faulty. His only interest other than soldiering and the tournament was heraldry for which he had a passion. The Duke of Bedford, a big fleshy man with a huge hook nose, very unlike the handsome Clarence, was a far more gifted, if less enthusiastic, soldier; his attention to detail and steadiness won major battles on both land and sea. He was also a remarkably effective administrator, of such high calibre that the king never hesitated in entrusting him with the regency, the ‘home front’. Jean Favier emphasizes the extraordinary co-operation and support he gave to his royal brother.
⁶
The most striking quality of this unusually good-natured man, one which Henry did not share, was that he understood and liked the French, a liking they reciprocated. Gloucester, youngest of the brothers and the family intellectual, was least useful – vain, opinionated and headstrong, adequate if given limited tasks under strict supervision. The other member of the family to belong to the team was Henry’s uncle, the Duke of Exeter (Thomas Beaufort, formerly Earl of Dorset, created a duke for life in 1416). He was a superb fighting soldier as he had showed by his defence of Harfleur and by snatching victory from defeat at Valmont. A thoroughly dependable workhorse, he was often given immense responsibility.

‘The wars in France turned the higher nobility into professional soldiers,’ says G. L. Harriss.
⁷
Foremost among these soldier noblemen were the Earls of Salisbury, Warwick and Huntingdon, and Lord Talbot. Thomas Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, a year younger than the king and the son of Richard II’s favourite, was the most brilliant commander of the entire Hundred Years War after Henry himself. Henry had total trust in him – although to begin with he may have had reservations because of his parentage. A complete professional, he was a daring raider into enemy territory who could extricate his men from the most dangerous situations; at the same time he was a skilled artilleryman and expert in siegecraft, like the king, and no less sound on staffwork or in finding supplies. Above all, he had a shrewd grasp of strategy and tactics. Although a ferocious disciplinarian he was popular with the troops. He was dreaded by the enemy. Shakespeare probably conveys accurately enough what the French thought about him:

Salisbury is a desperate homicide;

He fighteth as one weary of his life
.

His ways with prisoners did not endear him to the French – after capturing the château of Orsay in 1423 he brought the garrison back to Paris with ropes round their necks.

Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, was five years older than Henry and had campaigned with him against Glyn Dŵr. He was an avaricious knight errant with a taste for the spectacular; in 1408 he had performed a long, roundabout pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a species of grand tour during which he stayed with Charles VI at Paris, with the Doge of Venice and with the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, fighting in tournaments whenever possible – most notably a ferocious duel on foot against Pandolfo Malatesta. At the same time he was a steady and resourceful commander in the field and an excellent administrator. The king had so much respect for Warwick that he appointed him a governor and tutor of his son. There was, however, an extremely unpleasant side to the earl, who was basically a hard, cold and ruthless politician-soldier; one day he would burn Joan of Arc.

Another well-tried commander, four years older than Henry, who had also done good service in Wales, was Gilbert, Lord Talbot. The youngest of the team was John Holland, the son of Richard II’s stepbrother, to whom the king only restored his father’s earldom in 1417. From a military point of view he was undeniably precocious; born in 1396, he had distinguished himself during the 1415 campaign, leading the first landing at Harfleur and fighting with outstanding gallantry at Agincourt.

Almost as useful as these four were Sir John Cornwall (the future Lord Fanhope), Sir Gilbert Umfraville (styled ‘Earl of Kyme’), Sir John Grey (soon to become Count of Tancarville), Sir Walter Hungerford (the first Lord Hungerford) and Lord Willoughby d’Eresby. Cornwall was a ‘left-handed’ Plantagenet, being descended through a bastard line from Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans – Henry III’s brother – and having married as his third wife Henry IV’s sister, Elisabeth, who fell in love with him after a dazzling performance at a tournament. (He was also Huntingdon’s stepfather, by his second marriage.) A specialist in the assault, with Huntingdon he had been the first to land at Harfleur, and he was the first to force his way over the Somme on the march to Agincourt, where he had fought magnificently. Although by now well into his forties he was to prove one of the most aggressive of all the king’s soldiers. Umfraville, a Northumbrian from Redesdale, was another extremely able commander – a young man who was popular with the men and whose attractive personality can be sensed over the centuries. Sir John Grey of Heton (brother of Sir Thomas of the Southampton Plot) was another dashing Northumbrian who was a natural soldier. Sir Walter Hungerford of Farleigh Hungerford in Somerset, who became Steward of the Royal Household, was a former MP for Wiltshire and Somerset and a former Speaker of the House of Commons. Despite his legendary loss of nerve at Agincourt he was a sound fighting man who made a fortune out of ransoms and loot during the war. Willoughby d’Eresby who, although thirty-two by 1417 had not been at Agincourt, spent the rest of his long life fighting in France and was yet another dedicated commander.

There was a host of lesser talent from outside the ranks of the upper nobility. Like Hungerford, some had profited from ransoms won at Agincourt, and all hoped for opportunities for fresh plunder in France. Even though unattracted by the prospect of arduous and dangerous campaigning, every prominent landowner must have been aware that he risked Henry’s displeasure if he failed to obey the royal summons to serve abroad. The king also wanted men to administer the territories he was going to conquer; gentlemen such as Sir John Assheton (a former MP for Lancashire), Sir Thomas Rempston (Knight of the Garter and a former MP for Nottinghamshire), Sir Rowland Lenthall from Herefordshire, Sir John Radcliffe from Westmorland, and many others. They came to fight, however advanced in years, bringing their own men-at-arms and archers with them, though, as will be seen, more often than not other duties awaited them. Not just the peerage but the entire landed gentry of England, including thirty MPs, were to be mobilized for conquest across the Channel. Most would serve as simple men-at-arms.
⁸
They have been called the most bellicose squirearchy in Europe.

Henry did more than prepare to mobilize. He secured the Duke of Brittany’s neutrality. Brittany stood in relation to France rather as Scotland did to England. Even though the French king was technically the duke’s overlord, there was an ancient, long-established sense of a separate identity which verged on separate nationality. Breton lawyers claimed that ‘the country (
pais
) of Brittany is a country separate and distinct from others’. Not only were its dukes consecrated in a coronation ceremony at the Breton capital of Rennes, but they possessed their own order of chivalry, the Knights of the Ermine (named after the ermine fur which was the ducal coat of arms and the banner of Brittany).

The duke at that time, John V (1399–1442), a cunning and faithless politician, had little cause to favour Henry, who had taken his brother prisoner at Agincourt. The king disliked him intensely and had neither forgotten nor forgiven the ferocious activities of Breton privateers in the recent past. Nevertheless the duke was invited to England and apparently visited Southampton in April 1417. Henceforth the English and the Bretons signed a series of truces pledging themselves to refrain from acts of war against each other. John V did so most unwillingly and many Breton contingents served unofficially with the French armies. However, the duke was a realist. Although he far preferred the Valois to the Plantagenets he was determined to be on the winning side and was obviously impressed by the English king. It was vital for Henry that Brittany should stay out of the conflict and he somehow succeeded in maintaining peace. It was a considerable diplomatic achievement.

In November 1416 the author of the
Gesta
recorded ‘the king’s unbreakable resolve to go overseas in the following summer to subdue the stubborn and more than adamantine obduracy of the French, which neither the tender milk of goats nor the consuming wine of vengeance, nor yet the most thoroughgoing negotiations, could soften’. He adds that Henry’s aim was that ‘the two swords, the sword of the French and the sword of England, may return to the rightful government of a single ruler’.
⁹
He may well have been echoing the king’s own words, since Henry frequently put his case in similar terms.

IX

The Fall of Caen

‘
Down goeth the wall; in and upon them then!
’

A fifteenth-century translation
of Vegetius’s
De Re Militari

‘This storm of war raised up against us by the people of England’

Jean Chartier,
Chronique de Charles VII

B
y March 1417 the king was gathering ships and troops. As before, many vessels were hired from the Low Countries; in addition a number of Venetian merchantmen were commandeered and, despite having lost so many carracks to the English, the Genoese also supplied some boats. Henry left London for Southampton at the end of April. There were the same massive preparations as in 1415. The assembly of men, livestock, food, tools, and weaponry, was, if anything, on a larger scale than before. The
Brut of England
speaks of ‘guns, trebuchets, engines, sows, bastilles, bridges of leather, scaling ladders, mauls, spades, shovels, picks, pavises, bows and arrows, bowstrings, shafts and pipes full of arrows’ and that ‘thither come to him ships laden with gunpowder’.
¹
(Trebuchets were rock-throwing catapults, sows and bastilles were armoured shelters for attacking walls and siege-towers, while pavises were standing shields for protecting archers as they shot.) Probably as many as 12,000 men-at-arms and bowmen mustered, with perhaps 30,000 supernumaries – miners, engineers, armourers, farriers, gunners, masons (to make gunstones) etc. The fleet in which they were to embark numbered not less than 1,500 sail. The invasion was delayed until the late summer, till Lord Huntingdon had eliminated any danger from the Genoese carracks in France’s service; even then, the Earl of March was ordered to ‘skim the sea’ and guard against any further naval threat, though none would be forthcoming. The king had a healthy respect for warships. The embarkation began on 23 July. On 30 July his second armada set out for France. His own ship was distinguished by a mainsail of purple silk which bore the royal arms.

Henry intended not just to invade but to conquer Normandy – a full-scale Norman Conquest in reverse. The duchy was to be another Guyenne. Territory would be held by occupying strongholds – cities, towns or châteaux – at strategic key points. It was essential to reduce every one of these in the areas invaded since even a small enemy garrison behind the lines could, if led by a skilled commander, disrupt communications and supplies. The king must have had maps of a sort, although none have survived – otherwise he could never have planned the forthcoming campaigns with such brilliant precision.