The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's Self-Made King (85 page)

10
. Wylie, iv, p. 38.

11
. For example, Kirby, p. 238, and Wylie, iv, p. 40. McNiven in ‘Health’ allows that problems with the prince may have been the real reason. It should be noted that the king was well enough and sane enough at this time to write letters in his own hand (for which see
Signet Letters,
p. 155).

12
.
Syllabus,
p. 568 (ships);
PROME,
1411 November, introduction (summons). If Wylie, iv, p. 41, is correct in stating that plans for the parliament were being made as early as 28 August, this might suggest that the council was planning to hold a parliament in Henry’s absence, in which case there can be little doubt that the purpose was to gain parliamentary approval for his deposition.

13
.
PROME,
1411 November, introduction.

14
. Kirby, p. 234; Allmand, p. 53;
CB,
pp. 64–5.

15
.
Eulogium,
iii, pp. 420–1. In addition there is the prince’s open letter of 1412, which accuses others of claiming this about him (for which see
CM,
p. 384) and similar claims in February 1426 against Henry Beaufort regarding his disloyalty to Henry IV. The latter accusation was on the testimony of Henry V himself, who reported
to his brother Humphrey that when Henry IV had been extremely ill, Henry Beaufort had said to him that the king, being so racked with illness that he was not
compos mentis
or able to speak, was not capable of governing his people, and so he urged him to take the government and crown upon himself (
PROME,
1426 February, appendix).

16
.
PROME,
1411 November, introduction, quoting J. A. Giles (ed.),
Incerti Scriptoris Chronicon Angliae
(1848), p. 63.

17
.
PROME,
1411 November, item 25.

18
.
PROME,
1411 November, item 26.

19
.
CCR 1409–13,
p. 311. The sole exceptions were Owen Glendower and Thomas Ward of Trumpington (the man impersonating Richard II in Scotland).

20
. Henry’s final council is named in
PC,
ii, pp. 31 (twice, once without Lord Roos), 36 and 38. Bowet was appointed on 6 January 1412 (Wylie, iv, p. 52). See also
King’s Council,
p. 164, where it is stated that the duke of Clarence was a member of the council. This is unlikely, as he was abroad from shortly after his creation as duke.

21
. Allmand, p. 61. On p. 54 Allmand suggests that Henry chose to support the Armagnacs because he wished to demonstrate his independence from his son’s policy in supporting Burgundy. However, Henry is unlikely to have made his mind up on which faction to support only in the wake of dismissing his son; it is far more likely that this was a bone of contention leading to the prince’s dismissal.

22
. For enmity between the duke of Brittany (son of the queen of England) and Burgundy, see
Monstrelet,
i, p. 209. In addition, it should be noted that Arthur of Brittany, son of Queen Joan of England, had been brought up in the household of the duke of Orléans (Wylie, iv, p. 67). For the alliances between the Armagnacs and Navarre, Gascony, Brittany and Aragon see
CM,
p. 382.

23
. Representatives of the duke of Burgundy were in England discussing the potential marriage alliance from 1 February to 4 March 1412. Henry had given them safe-conducts on 11 January 1412 and appointed negotiators to deal with them on 10 February. The Armagnacs sent negotiators on 24 January; they received safe-conducts on 6 February. See
Syllabus,
ii, p. 569; Wylie, iv, p. 64.

24
.
CM,
p. 385.

25
. C 53/179 no 07.

26
. The prince received one thousand marks on 18 February (Wylie, iv, p. 51); payments for their services also went to the prince’s treasurer, Henry Scrope, and the earls of Arundel and Warwick. Allmand, p. 53, quoting E 404/27/168–9, 214, 268.

27
. C 53/179 nos 5, 6. The earlier of these was the foundation by the duke of York of the great collegiate church at Fotheringay. That Henry visited Windsor in the meantime is suggested by the itinerary in Wylie, iv, p. 301.

28
. As Henry declared on 16 May. See
Syllabus,
p. 571.

29
. For the naming of the prince as a supporter of the king on this expedition, see
CM,
p. 386.

30
. C 53/179 no. 2. This took place on 5 July 1412, four days before Thomas of Lancaster was created duke of Clarence. Extraordinarily, these creations were the only ones in the whole of Henry IV’s reign (except passing the royal and Lancastrian titles to his son and heir in 1399). It is surprising that until now he had not raised
his younger sons to dukedoms, even though parliament had urged him to do so regularly since 1406. There are two obvious reasons why he had been reluctant. One was that he could not afford to endow his sons with the lands required to maintain them in the dignity of dukes. The other was the lesson of Richard’s reign, in which so many dukes had been created that the dignity had been cheapened.

31
. C 53/l79 no. 5.

32
.
CM,
p. 386.

33
. Wylie, iv, pp. 92–3.

34
.
CM,
p. 386, has 29 June. Wylie, iv, p. 90, states that the prince was at the bishop of London’s house from 30 June to 11 July. There are several accounts of what took place in his meeting with his father, but it seems that two separate meetings have been confused by contemporary writers: one following the prince’s letter of 17 June and the other following accusations of the prince’s sequestration of the money for Calais in September. Wylie associates the prince drawing a dagger in the king’s presence and asking the king to kill him to the late June reconciliation; Allmand and
ODNB
(under ‘Henry IV’) date it to the September one. The closeness of the suspicions harboured by the king in the
First English Life of Henry V to
those mentioned by Walsingham in relation to June, combined with the presence of the earl of Ormond (who sailed to France with the duke of Clarence in August), favour the late June meeting. See Wylie, iv, pp. 53, 90–91; Allmand, pp. 57–8; C. L. Kingsford (ed.),
The First English Life of Henry V
(Oxford, 1911), pp. 11–12;
EHD,
p. 206;
CM,
p. 387.

35
. Wylie, iv, p. 90; John Stow,
Chronicle of England
(1615), p. 339. But note Wylie’s word of caution on not finding Ormond’s testimony in Stow’s supposed source.

36
.
EHD,
p. 206.

37
. John Stow,
Chronicle of England
(1615), p. 340. Whether this scene relates to the reconciliation in late June or early July, or to a second meeting of the king and his son in late September, is not certain. However, a meaningful reconciliation did take place between Henry and his son at this time, followed by a show of reconciliation between Henry Beaufort and Thomas of Lancaster. On 13 July 1412 Henry Beaufort received a pardon which specifically named him as executor of his brother’s will, reflecting on his dispute with Thomas (
CPR 1408–13
, p. 420).

38
. Wylie, iv, p. 72.

39
.
PC,
ii, p. 33; Wylie, iv, p. 77, has different figures, taken from the St Denis chronicle.

40
.
PC,
ii, pp. 34–5. This is undated but it includes a reference to paying wages to the prince for the service of sixty men-at-arms for 203 days from 9 March, i.e. to 25 September.

41
. Walsingham also claims this in relation to the June reconciliation. In relation to these earlier claims, Arundel had received a general pardon on 15 June (
Syllabus,
ii, p. 571). Walsingham gives very little information for the last year of the king’s life, however, and is less reliable as an authority for this period.

42
.
PC,
ii, pp. 37–8.

43
. Wylie, iv, p. 102.

44
.
EHD,
p. 206.

45
. Wylie, iv, p. 38, n. 1.

46
. Or the Bethlehem Chamber, according to Elmham, a royal chaplain. See Wright (ed.),
Political Poems,
ii, pp. 122.

47
.
Brut,
ii, p. 372;
EHD,
p. 207.

48
.
Monstrelet,
i, pp. 239–40;
Waurin,
pp. 166–7. Monstrelet was Waurin’s source (Gransden,
Historical Writing II,
pp. 289, 291–2). Monstrelet himself does not fail to compliment Henry on his virtues; he describes him as ‘a valiant knight, eager and subtle against his enemies’, and states that the prince was ‘honourably crowned’, so the bias of the story was not his own. But we should be suspicious of the veracity of a French tale which casts the Lancastrians in an unworthy light and conflicts with what was recorded in England.

49
. Gransden,
Historical Writing II,
pp. 389–90.

50
.
IH,
p. 124.

51
. Capgrave,
Chronicle of England,
pp. 302–3.

52
. See
ODNB,
under ‘Henry IV’ and ‘Elmham, Thomas’; Wright (ed.),
Political Poems,
ii, pp. 118–23.

53
.
Foedera,
ix, pp. 9–10;
Issues,
pp. 334–5. Henry V purchased his father’s goods on 15 May for £25,000 so he could ‘perform his will’. Henry V had not managed to pay all his father’s debts by the time of his own death in 1422. Further evidence that Henry made his second will on his deathbed may be found in
Brut,
ii, p. 372.

19. That I and Greatness were Compelled to Kiss

  
1
.
PK,
p. 401.

  
2
.
Waurin,
pp. 63–4.

Appendix One

  
1
. For Henry V, whose birth is sometimes wrongly assigned to August 1387, see Appendix Three.

  
2
. For a history of the royal Maundy ceremony, see the two books by Brian Robinson,
Royal Maundy
(1977), and
Silver Pennies and Linen Towels
(1992).

Appendix Two

  
1
.
CR,
p. 166.

Appendix Three

  
1
. Kirby, p. 16;
Register 1379–1383,
i, pp. 180, 222, 232; ii, p. 309. This last shows that Mary’s mother was paid for her daughter’s upkeep for a year on 31 January 1382, presumably in advance. See also
CPR 1381–85
, p. 95: this shows that Mary was still living with her mother on 6 February 1382.

  
2
.
LK,
p. 17.

  
3
. Wylie, iv, p. 166. The use of both English and Latin is common in Wylie’s appendices.

  
4
. Wylie, iv, p. 167.

  
5
. Alison Weir,
Britain’s Royal Families
(Pimlico edn, 2002), p. 124.

  
6
. DL 28/1/1 fol. 5r.

  
7
.
CIPM,
xvii, pp. 376–80. Odd IPMs also give his age as fourteen or sixteen, but most agree on ‘15 and more’.

  
8
. John Rylands Library, French MS 54; Allmand, pp. 7–8.

  
9
. Allmand, p. 7.

10
. DL 28/1/2 fol. 20v., noted in Wylie, iv, p. 159. A payment to the midwife who assisted at Thomas’s birth is also noted in this account, as are cloth, kirtles, tunics and sandals for Thomas as well as his older brother.

11
. DL 28/1/2 fol. 28. This is an indenture between Henry of Lancaster’s chamberlain and treasurer, dated 24 September 1386.

12
. E 101/404/23 fol. 3r.

13
. Allmand, p. 8. Also see the ages for Henry cited in Wylie, iii, p. 324.

14
. DL 28/1/2 fol. 17r.

15
.
ODNB,
under ‘John of Lancaster’,
CP,
ii, p. 70.

16
.
Expeditions,
p. 107.

17
. Wylie, iii, p. 248.

18
. Goodman,
John of Gaunt,
p. 155.

19
. Wylie, ‘Dispensation of John XXIII for a son of Henry IV’, pp. 96–7. Edmund was in his eleventh year on 15 January 1412. It is not known why he was called ‘le Bourd’ (‘the joke’, or ‘the deceipt’), nor whom the mother might have been. He was educated in London.

Appendix Four

  
1
.
Waurin,
p. 60.

  
2
. Given-Wilson,
Usk,
p. 171; Wylie, i, p. 363.

  
3
. ‘Deposition’, pp. 80–81.

  
4
.
Brut,
ii, p. 549.

  
5
. For example, the contemporary Wigmore chronicle in the library of the University of Chicago (MS 224). I am indebted to Dr Philip Morgan for this detail.

  
6
. It may be worth noting that a mass grave of 159 feet in length and 9 feet in depth and width (IX instead of LX) would be sufficient to bury about a thousand corpses if piled four deep.

  
7
.
Eulogium,
iii, p. 397.

  
8
. Gapgrave,
Chronicle of England,
p. 283;
Annales,
p. 367.

  
9
. On the side of the rebels, five dead knights can be identified, including those executed after the battle. These are Henry Percy himself, the earl of Worcester, Sir Richard Venables, Sir Richard de Vernon and Sir Gilbert Halsall (the last being named in the Dieulacres chronicle). On the king’s side, ten men of substance can be identified as killed in the battle: the earl of Stafford and Sir Walter Blount (according to
Brut,
ii, p. 549), Hugh Schirle, John Clifton, John Cockayne, Nicholas Ganville, John Calverley, John Massy, lord of Podington, Hugh Mortimer and B. Gousile (according to
Annales,
p. 369).
The Brut
also incorrectly includes Sir John Stanley, who was only wounded. See also Wylie, iv, p. 303 for other men from Cheshire and Lancashire at the battle.