The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's Self-Made King (31 page)

For Henry, however, inheritance required staying alive, and that was looking a less likely prospect by the day. His argument with Mowbray was considered by the parliamentary commission at Bristol on 19 March 1398. It was decided then that the matter would be put to the Court of Chivalry, unless Henry could prove the slander or Mowbray could prove his innocence. That meant a duel. Henry returned with his father and the king to London at the beginning of April, and remained in the city until setting out for the Order of the Garter feast at Windsor.
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Shortly afterwards, on 28 April, he faced the parliamentary commissioners once again. This time he openly accused Mowbray of embezzling funds for the protection of Calais and, astoundingly, of murdering the duke of Gloucester.
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This new accusation was extremely dangerous. Froissart records that Richard had announced that anyone even mentioning the deaths of the duke of Gloucester and the earl of Arundel would be deemed a traitor.
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Mowbray had been acting on Richard’s orders. Would he now betray the king? Henry hoped perhaps to present Mowbray with such a difficult situation that he confessed to some lesser element of his crime and was judged the culprit. But Henry had struck a raw nerve: the king was incandescent with rage. Richard demanded an explanation from Mowbray. One of Mowbray’s knights answered for him, and accused Henry of lying. Richard directly asked Mowbray himself if these were his own words, and Mowbray answered that he had accepted money for the defence of Calais, but had never misappropriated any. He also admitted trying to kill John of Gaunt,
and claimed he had been forgiven. That was all he wished to say. Richard did not press him on the matter of the murder. Instead he asked whether either of them would withdraw their accusations. They could not; as Mowbray said, honour was too deeply involved. Richard dismissed them. The following day they were told that their dispute would be settled by a duel to be fought at Coventry in the autumn.
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Each man must have felt betrayed. In return for warning Henry of a murder plot against him and the disinheritance of his entire family, Mowbray was now in prison, in disgrace, had lost his position as Earl Marshal, and would have to fight for his life. He had been openly accused of murder, which he had committed out of loyalty to the king. Henry, having reported to his father what had been said about a plot to kill them both, was now being treated as if
he
was the traitor. These two men were now to fight a duel, a joust of war. The lances would not be capped.

Henry’s physical state seems now to have taken a turn for the worse. Payments appear in his accounts for mending his brass astrolabe on 17 May and again on 8 July.
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They do not necessarily indicate that Henry was intent on having his future told, for the position of the stars was a factor taken into consideration by physicians when deciding the most propitious time to use medicine, or to let blood; but it is good evidence that he was either ill or consulting the stars for some other purpose. In support of the illness interpretation, medicines were bought for him in London on the last day of May.
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Other medicines were transported to him at Hertford in the summer.
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It is likely that the stress of the situation was making him ill. Another example of his concern might be a payment for a figure of St Christopher – the protector of travellers – which he bought for one of his messengers, John Elys, when he sent him to the king.
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On Maundy Thursday in this year (4 April) he gave alms to as many paupers as were in his age not
next
birthday but the year after that: thirty-three paupers, although he was only thirty-one.
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In later years, the payment by the king of an extra year’s alms was described as ‘the Year of Grace’, that is, the next year which the king hoped that by God’s grace he would live to see.
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Henry’s example in 1398 might be the first instance of such a hopeful donation.

We may ask why Henry was so worried, given that he was one of the most proficient jousters in the realm, and had done nothing wrong. Mowbray was hardly any less a jousting champion than Henry.
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At St Inglevert, eight years earlier, Mowbray had dared to ride one of the first jousts of war against Renaud de Roye, and had broken one of the Frenchman’s lances. Thus the forthcoming duel was not only the first in England between two dukes, it was between two of the best jousting champions in the kingdom. Another reason for Henry to be worried was Richard’s
reaction. If he survived, he would be the last of the Appellants whom Richard had sworn to destroy, and more vulnerable than ever. If he lost this joust, he would be either dead or guilty of slander, and thus ruined.

For the forthcoming duel, Henry understandably wanted nothing but the very best military hardware. Thus he sent to his old friend Gian Galeazzo Visconti, duke of Milan. The Italian esquire Francis Court, who had devoted himself to Henry’s service since 1393, was now sent back to his old master to request the finest Italian armour available.
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Later that summer a group of Italians from Duke Gian Galeazzo arrived, and were entertained at Henry’s expense, probably bearing the equipment.
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At the same time, Mowbray was soliciting the help of the best German armourers. The forthcoming duel was set to be the greatest chivalric event of the age: two dukes, two jousting champions, the two leading manufacturers of armour, and a fight to the death over a matter of honour.

Over the next five months Henry travelled around the country. Froissart states that both his father and the king kept their distance from him at this time.
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However, Henry was with the king in London in April, and with John at Pontefract on 9 July.
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A month later he was in London, presumably at his house in Bishopsgate Street.
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On 22 July he was ordered, on pain of death, to present himself to the king in person on 2 August at Shrewsbury, with no more than twenty men in his company. Mowbray – still in custody – received the same order.
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It is not known what happened at that meeting. Perhaps it marked a last attempt to reconcile the two men. Writs to attend the duel had yet to be sent out, and it seems that Richard understood that Henry’s charge against Mowbray’s misuse of the Calais money was provable.
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He may have asked that Henry withdraw the accusation of murder against Mowbray in return for Mowbray admitting he had misappropriated the Calais money. If this was the case, then Henry refused. There was nothing for it now but to do battle.

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Henry arrived at Coventry on 15 September, the day before the duel.
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He stayed in a large house just within the town gates. The excited townspeople craned to see in but could only catch a glimpse of the wooden pavilion sited in its grounds, not those coming and going. Many lords and knights had come to witness the fight, and many others had come from overseas with entreaties to stop it. The count of St Pol had come from France for just such a purpose. French feelings were mixed. On the one hand, a fight between two dukes was too much of a horror to be contemplated, for it threatened to divide two major families of the realm, so
Richard was a fool to let them fight. On the other, there was the view that it did not matter if they fought, on account of the English being ‘the most perverse and proud people on Earth’.
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Opinion was divided in England too, for different reasons. The mass of the people, who had come to regard Henry as a hero, were of the opinion that he should avenge the death of his uncle on the murderer Mowbray. Others, who realised the risk to themselves of Henry being killed in such a fight, and the possible disinheritance of the Lancastrians, were of the contrary view.

On the morning of Monday 16 September, Henry’s esquires strapped him into his Italian armour. Mowbray set out at eight o’clock to say farewell to the king, who was lodging at Baginton, William Bagot’s house, just outside the town. Henry had performed the same duty the previous evening. Thus it was Mowbray whom the crowds saw first: splendidly arrayed in his German steel, his war horse covered with crimson velvet embroidered with silver and mulberry trees. An hour later Henry appeared, even more spectacularly armed, on a white war horse, draped in a livery of blue and green velvet embroidered with gold swans and antelopes.
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Behind him followed six other war horses with various exotic trappings.
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The crowd was ecstatic, and the popular support behind Henry immediately became apparent.

The lists themselves were set up in an area sixty paces long by forty wide, with a central barrier seven feet high. There stood the constable of England (the duke of Aumale) and the marshal of England (the duke of Surrey). They and their sergeants-at-arms and heralds were all dressed in red Kendal cloth, with belts embroidered with a near-quotation of the motto of the Order of the Garter,
Honniz soit celluy qui mal pense
(‘shame on him who thinks evil’). First they addressed Henry, as he rode up on his white charger. The constable and marshal demanded that he show his face and announce himself. With the visor of his helmet open, Henry declared in a loud voice, ‘I am Henry of Lancaster, duke of Hereford, and I have come here to prosecute my appeal in combating Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, who is a traitor, false and recreant to God, the king, his realm and me.’ Henry then swore that his bill was true in all respects, and that he had no other weapons but those allowed, and that he would either kill his adversary or force him to surrender. Having sworn these oaths, he was asked to present his arms. He lifted his shield arm, bearing not the royal arms but those of St George: a red cross on a white background. He was fighting in the arms of the martial saint, under whose banner Edward III had fought. There could be no surer sign of his belief that he was in the right.

With his arms acknowledged, Henry entered the lists and rode straight
for his pavilion, a huge tent decorated with red roses (later to become the most potent Lancastrian symbol of them all). There he awaited the arrival of his adversary. With the king and thousands of people watching, Mowbray rode up and announced himself. He uncovered his face and swore his oaths. The herald in charge then proclaimed from the heralds’ stand that it was the king’s will that anyone who touched the lists should forfeit his hand, and anyone who entered the lists should be hanged. Mowbray then shouted ‘God speed the right!’ and rode to his pavilion, dismounted and hung his shield up. The constable and marshal measured the lances of each combatant, to make sure they were the same length. This done, Henry rode to the end of the lists.

Henry’s war horse had only advanced seven or eight paces, and Mowbray had not yet moved at all, when suddenly a shout went up. ‘Ho! Ho!’ called the king from his seat, rising to his feet. Henry came to a halt. Incredibly, Richard was ordering the fight to be stopped.

Henry sat there, shocked, as the king gestured for his lance to be taken away from him, and for him to be conducted to his pavilion. With thousands of onlookers wondering what was going on, the pair of them had been made to look like fools.

The morning drew on. Noon came, and nothing happened.

After two hours of waiting, the herald of the duke of Brittany mounted the heralds’ stand with a long roll of parchment in his hand. He began to read, as follows:

Listen! My lords, I inform you by order of the king and council, the constable and the marshal, that Henry of Lancaster, duke of Hereford, Appellant, and Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, defendant, have both appeared here valiantly and that each was and is ready to do his duty like a brave knight. Nevertheless, our lord the king, considering the reason for the battle is so high, that is to say treason determined by parliament, and the dukes of Hereford and Norfolk being so close in blood to the king and of his arms, our lord the king, as one who has always trusted in the worth and honour of all those of his blood and of his arms, and grieving in his heart, as a good and gracious lord … to avoid complete dishonour befalling one of the said dukes … of his special grace has taken the battle into his own hand. And our said lord the king, with the full advice, authority, and assent of parliament, wills … that the said Henry of Lancaster duke of Hereford should quit his realm for ten years. And that he should be outside the said realm before the day of the octave of St Edward the Confessor, upon pain of incurring the penalty for treason by authority of parliament.
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It is difficult for a biographer to reflect the full crushing weight of this announcement. As Henry’s reactions are not recorded, it is difficult to say anything certain about how it affected him. Certainly we cannot say that it unleashed a burst of violence; with two thousand Cheshire archers present, he could hardly attack the king. But nor would it be right to say that he accepted this judgement, or his banishment, with equanimity. What had just happened was one of the grossest acts of tyranny in English history. Richard was not going to let him fight for the justice of his case. Instead, the king was apportioning blame for the slander, as if both men were partly responsible. Thus Henry shared a fate which carried all the stigma of treason, loss of royal favour and dishonour. All for mentioning another man’s accusations against the king.
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