ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIFTH
FIRST PART
The Prince of Wales began his reign like a generous and honest man. He
set the young Earl of March free; he restored their estates and their
honours to the Percy family, who had lost them by their rebellion
against his father; he ordered the imbecile and unfortunate Richard to
be honourably buried among the Kings of England; and he dismissed all
his wild companions, with assurances that they should not want, if they
would resolve to be steady, faithful, and true.
It is much easier to burn men than to burn their opinions; and those of
the Lollards were spreading every day. The Lollards were represented by
the priests—probably falsely for the most part—to entertain treasonable
designs against the new King; and Henry, suffering himself to be worked
upon by these representations, sacrificed his friend Sir John
Oldcastle, the Lord Cobham, to them, after trying in vain to convert
him by arguments. He was declared guilty, as the head of the sect, and
sentenced to the flames; but he escaped from the Tower before the day
of execution (postponed for fifty days by the King himself), and
summoned the Lollards to meet him near London on a certain day. So the
priests told the King, at least. I doubt whether there was any
conspiracy beyond such as was got up by their agents. On the day
appointed, instead of five-and-twenty thousand men, under the command
of Sir John Oldcastle, in the meadows of St. Giles, the King found only
eighty men, and no Sir John at all. There was, in another place, an
addle-headed brewer, who had gold trappings to his horses, and a pair
of gilt spurs in his breast—expecting to be made a knight next day by
Sir John, and so to gain the right to wear them—but there was no Sir
John, nor did anybody give information respecting him, though the King
offered great rewards for such intelligence. Thirty of these
unfortunate Lollards were hanged and drawn immediately, and were then
burnt, gallows and all; and the various prisons in and around London
were crammed full of others. Some of these unfortunate men made various
confessions of treasonable designs; but, such confessions were easily
got, under torture and the fear of fire, and are very little to be
trusted. To finish the sad story of Sir John Oldcastle at once, I may
mention that he escaped into Wales, and remained there safely, for four
years. When discovered by Lord Powis, it is very doubtful if he would
have been taken alive—so great was the old soldier’s bravery—if a
miserable old woman had not come behind him and broken his legs with a
stool. He was carried to London in a horse-litter, was fastened by an
iron chain to a gibbet, and so roasted to death.
To make the state of France as plain as I can in a few words, I should
tell you that the Duke of Orleans, and the Duke of Burgundy, commonly
called ‘John without fear,’ had had a grand reconciliation of their
quarrel in the last reign, and had appeared to be quite in a heavenly
state of mind. Immediately after which, on a Sunday, in the public
streets of Paris, the Duke of Orleans was murdered by a party of twenty
men, set on by the Duke of Burgundy—according to his own deliberate
confession. The widow of King Richard had been married in France to the
eldest son of the Duke of Orleans. The poor mad King was quite
powerless to help her, and the Duke of Burgundy became the real master
of France. Isabella dying, her husband (Duke of Orleans since the death
of his father) married the daughter of the Count of Armagnac, who,
being a much abler man than his young son-in-law, headed his party;
thence called after him Armagnacs. Thus, France was now in this
terrible condition, that it had in it the party of the King’s son, the
Dauphin Louis; the party of the Duke of Burgundy, who was the father of
the Dauphin’s ill-used wife; and the party of the Armagnacs; all hating
each other; all fighting together; all composed of the most depraved
nobles that the earth has ever known; and all tearing unhappy France to
pieces.
The late King had watched these dissensions from England, sensible
(like the French people) that no enemy of France could injure her more
than her own nobility. The present King now advanced a claim to the
French throne. His demand being, of course, refused, he reduced his
proposal to a certain large amount of French territory, and to
demanding the French princess, Catherine, in marriage, with a fortune
of two millions of golden crowns. He was offered less territory and
fewer crowns, and no princess; but he called his ambassadors home and
prepared for war. Then, he proposed to take the princess with one
million of crowns. The French Court replied that he should have the
princess with two hundred thousand crowns less; he said this would not
do (he had never seen the princess in his life), and assembled his army
at Southampton. There was a short plot at home just at that time, for
deposing him, and making the Earl of March king; but the conspirators
were all speedily condemned and executed, and the King embarked for
France.
It is dreadful to observe how long a bad example will be followed; but,
it is encouraging to know that a good example is never thrown away. The
King’s first act on disembarking at the mouth of the river Seine, three
miles from Harfleur, was to imitate his father, and to proclaim his
solemn orders that the lives and property of the peaceable inhabitants
should be respected on pain of death. It is agreed by French writers,
to his lasting renown, that even while his soldiers were suffering the
greatest distress from want of food, these commands were rigidly
obeyed.
With an army in all of thirty thousand men, he besieged the town of
Harfleur both by sea and land for five weeks; at the end of which time
the town surrendered, and the inhabitants were allowed to depart with
only fivepence each, and a part of their clothes. All the rest of their
possessions was divided amongst the English army. But, that army
suffered so much, in spite of its successes, from disease and
privation, that it was already reduced one half. Still, the King was
determined not to retire until he had struck a greater blow. Therefore,
against the advice of all his counsellors, he moved on with his little
force towards Calais. When he came up to the river Somme he was unable
to cross, in consequence of the fort being fortified; and, as the
English moved up the left bank of the river looking for a crossing, the
French, who had broken all the bridges, moved up the right bank,
watching them, and waiting to attack them when they should try to pass
it. At last the English found a crossing and got safely over. The
French held a council of war at Rouen, resolved to give the English
battle, and sent heralds to King Henry to know by which road he was
going. ‘By the road that will take me straight to Calais!’ said the
King, and sent them away with a present of a hundred crowns.
The English moved on, until they beheld the French, and then the King
gave orders to form in line of battle. The French not coming on, the
army broke up after remaining in battle array till night, and got good
rest and refreshment at a neighbouring village. The French were now all
lying in another village, through which they knew the English must
pass. They were resolved that the English should begin the battle. The
English had no means of retreat, if their King had any such intention;
and so the two armies passed the night, close together.
To understand these armies well, you must bear in mind that the immense
French army had, among its notable persons, almost the whole of that
wicked nobility, whose debauchery had made France a desert; and so
besotted were they by pride, and by contempt for the common people,
that they had scarcely any bowmen (if indeed they had any at all) in
their whole enormous number: which, compared with the English army, was
at least as six to one. For these proud fools had said that the bow was
not a fit weapon for knightly hands, and that France must be defended
by gentlemen only. We shall see, presently, what hand the gentlemen
made of it.
Now, on the English side, among the little force, there was a good
proportion of men who were not gentlemen by any means, but who were
good stout archers for all that. Among them, in the morning—having
slept little at night, while the French were carousing and making sure
of victory—the King rode, on a grey horse; wearing on his head a helmet
of shining steel, surmounted by a crown of gold, sparkling with
precious stones; and bearing over his armour, embroidered together, the
arms of England and the arms of France. The archers looked at the
shining helmet and the crown of gold and the sparkling jewels, and
admired them all; but, what they admired most was the King’s cheerful
face, and his bright blue eye, as he told them that, for himself, he
had made up his mind to conquer there or to die there, and that England
should never have a ransom to pay for _him_. There was one brave knight
who chanced to say that he wished some of the many gallant gentlemen
and good soldiers, who were then idle at home in England, were there to
increase their numbers. But the King told him that, for his part, he
did not wish for one more man. ‘The fewer we have,’ said he, ‘the
greater will be the honour we shall win!’ His men, being now all in
good heart, were refreshed with bread and wine, and heard prayers, and
waited quietly for the French. The King waited for the French, because
they were drawn up thirty deep (the little English force was only three
deep), on very difficult and heavy ground; and he knew that when they
moved, there must be confusion among them.
As they did not move, he sent off two parties:—one to lie concealed in
a wood on the left of the French: the other, to set fire to some houses
behind the French after the battle should be begun. This was scarcely
done, when three of the proud French gentlemen, who were to defend
their country without any help from the base peasants, came riding out,
calling upon the English to surrender. The King warned those gentlemen
himself to retire with all speed if they cared for their lives, and
ordered the English banners to advance. Upon that, Sir Thomas
Erpingham, a great English general, who commanded the archers, threw
his truncheon into the air, joyfully, and all the English men, kneeling
down upon the ground and biting it as if they took possession of the
country, rose up with a great shout and fell upon the French.
Every archer was furnished with a great stake tipped with iron; and his
orders were, to thrust this stake into the ground, to discharge his
arrow, and then to fall back, when the French horsemen came on. As the
haughty French gentlemen, who were to break the English archers and
utterly destroy them with their knightly lances, came riding up, they
were received with such a blinding storm of arrows, that they broke and
turned. Horses and men rolled over one another, and the confusion was
terrific. Those who rallied and charged the archers got among the
stakes on slippery and boggy ground, and were so bewildered that the
English archers—who wore no armour, and even took off their leathern
coats to be more active—cut them to pieces, root and branch. Only three
French horsemen got within the stakes, and those were instantly
despatched. All this time the dense French army, being in armour, were
sinking knee-deep into the mire; while the light English archers,
half-naked, were as fresh and active as if they were fighting on a
marble floor.
But now, the second division of the French coming to the relief of the
first, closed up in a firm mass; the English, headed by the King,
attacked them; and the deadliest part of the battle began. The King’s
brother, the Duke of Clarence, was struck down, and numbers of the
French surrounded him; but, King Henry, standing over the body, fought
like a lion until they were beaten off.
Presently, came up a band of eighteen French knights, bearing the
banner of a certain French lord, who had sworn to kill or take the
English King. One of them struck him such a blow with a battle-axe that
he reeled and fell upon his knees; but, his faithful men, immediately
closing round him, killed every one of those eighteen knights, and so
that French lord never kept his oath.
The French Duke of Alençon, seeing this, made a desperate charge, and
cut his way close up to the Royal Standard of England. He beat down the
Duke of York, who was standing near it; and, when the King came to his
rescue, struck off a piece of the crown he wore. But, he never struck
another blow in this world; for, even as he was in the act of saying
who he was, and that he surrendered to the King; and even as the King
stretched out his hand to give him a safe and honourable acceptance of
the offer; he fell dead, pierced by innumerable wounds.
The death of this nobleman decided the battle. The third division of
the French army, which had never struck a blow yet, and which was, in
itself, more than double the whole English power, broke and fled. At
this time of the fight, the English, who as yet had made no prisoners,
began to take them in immense numbers, and were still occupied in doing
so, or in killing those who would not surrender, when a great noise
arose in the rear of the French—their flying banners were seen to
stop—and King Henry, supposing a great reinforcement to have arrived,
gave orders that all the prisoners should be put to death. As soon,
however, as it was found that the noise was only occasioned by a body
of plundering peasants, the terrible massacre was stopped.
Then King Henry called to him the French herald, and asked him to whom
the victory belonged.
The herald replied, ‘To the King of England.’
‘_We_ have not made this havoc and slaughter,’ said the King. ‘It is
the wrath of Heaven on the sins of France. What is the name of that
castle yonder?’
The herald answered him, ‘My lord, it is the castle of Azincourt.’ Said
the King, ‘From henceforth this battle shall be known to posterity, by
the name of the battle of Azincourt.’
Our English historians have made it Agincourt; but, under that name, it
will ever be famous in English annals.
The loss upon the French side was enormous. Three Dukes were killed,
two more were taken prisoners, seven Counts were killed, three more
were taken prisoners, and ten thousand knights and gentlemen were slain
upon the field. The English loss amounted to sixteen hundred men, among
whom were the Duke of York and the Earl of Suffolk.
War is a dreadful thing; and it is appalling to know how the English
were obliged, next morning, to kill those prisoners mortally wounded,
who yet writhed in agony upon the ground; how the dead upon the French
side were stripped by their own countrymen and countrywomen, and
afterwards buried in great pits; how the dead upon the English side
were piled up in a great barn, and how their bodies and the barn were
all burned together. It is in such things, and in many more much too
horrible to relate, that the real desolation and wickedness of war
consist. Nothing can make war otherwise than horrible. But the dark
side of it was little thought of and soon forgotten; and it cast no
shade of trouble on the English people, except on those who had lost
friends or relations in the fight. They welcomed their King home with
shouts of rejoicing, and plunged into the water to bear him ashore on
their shoulders, and flocked out in crowds to welcome him in every town
through which he passed, and hung rich carpets and tapestries out of
the windows, and strewed the streets with flowers, and made the
fountains run with wine, as the great field of Agincourt had run with
blood.
SECOND PART
That proud and wicked French nobility who dragged their country to
destruction, and who were every day and every year regarded with deeper
hatred and detestation in the hearts of the French people, learnt
nothing, even from the defeat of Agincourt. So far from uniting against
the common enemy, they became, among themselves, more violent, more
bloody, and more false—if that were possible—than they had been before.
The Count of Armagnac persuaded the French king to plunder of her
treasures Queen Isabella of Bavaria, and to make her a prisoner. She,
who had hitherto been the bitter enemy of the Duke of Burgundy,
proposed to join him, in revenge. He carried her off to Troyes, where
she proclaimed herself Regent of France, and made him her lieutenant.
The Armagnac party were at that time possessed of Paris; but, one of
the gates of the city being secretly opened on a certain night to a
party of the duke’s men, they got into Paris, threw into the prisons
all the Armagnacs upon whom they could lay their hands, and, a few
nights afterwards, with the aid of a furious mob of sixty thousand
people, broke the prisons open, and killed them all. The former Dauphin
was now dead, and the King’s third son bore the title. Him, in the
height of this murderous scene, a French knight hurried out of bed,
wrapped in a sheet, and bore away to Poitiers. So, when the revengeful
Isabella and the Duke of Burgundy entered Paris in triumph after the
slaughter of their enemies, the Dauphin was proclaimed at Poitiers as
the real Regent.
King Henry had not been idle since his victory of Agincourt, but had
repulsed a brave attempt of the French to recover Harfleur; had
gradually conquered a great part of Normandy; and, at this crisis of
affairs, took the important town of Rouen, after a siege of half a
year. This great loss so alarmed the French, that the Duke of Burgundy
proposed that a meeting to treat of peace should be held between the
French and the English kings in a plain by the river Seine. On the
appointed day, King Henry appeared there, with his two brothers,
Clarence and Gloucester, and a thousand men. The unfortunate French
King, being more mad than usual that day, could not come; but the Queen
came, and with her the Princess Catherine: who was a very lovely
creature, and who made a real impression on King Henry, now that he saw
her for the first time. This was the most important circumstance that
arose out of the meeting.
As if it were impossible for a French nobleman of that time to be true
to his word of honour in anything, Henry discovered that the Duke of
Burgundy was, at that very moment, in secret treaty with the Dauphin;
and he therefore abandoned the negotiation.
The Duke of Burgundy and the Dauphin, each of whom with the best reason
distrusted the other as a noble ruffian surrounded by a party of noble
ruffians, were rather at a loss how to proceed after this; but, at
length they agreed to meet, on a bridge over the river Yonne, where it
was arranged that there should be two strong gates put up, with an
empty space between them; and that the Duke of Burgundy should come
into that space by one gate, with ten men only; and that the Dauphin
should come into that space by the other gate, also with ten men, and
no more.
So far the Dauphin kept his word, but no farther. When the Duke of
Burgundy was on his knee before him in the act of speaking, one of the
Dauphin’s noble ruffians cut the said duke down with a small axe, and
others speedily finished him.
It was in vain for the Dauphin to pretend that this base murder was not
done with his consent; it was too bad, even for France, and caused a
general horror. The duke’s heir hastened to make a treaty with King
Henry, and the French Queen engaged that her husband should consent to
it, whatever it was. Henry made peace, on condition of receiving the
Princess Catherine in marriage, and being made Regent of France during
the rest of the King’s lifetime, and succeeding to the French crown at
his death. He was soon married to the beautiful Princess, and took her
proudly home to England, where she was crowned with great honour and
glory.
This peace was called the Perpetual Peace; we shall soon see how long
it lasted. It gave great satisfaction to the French people, although
they were so poor and miserable, that, at the time of the celebration
of the Royal marriage, numbers of them were dying with starvation, on
the dunghills in the streets of Paris. There was some resistance on the
part of the Dauphin in some few parts of France, but King Henry beat it
all down.
And now, with his great possessions in France secured, and his
beautiful wife to cheer him, and a son born to give him greater
happiness, all appeared bright before him. But, in the fulness of his
triumph and the height of his power, Death came upon him, and his day
was done. When he fell ill at Vincennes, and found that he could not
recover, he was very calm and quiet, and spoke serenely to those who
wept around his bed. His wife and child, he said, he left to the loving
care of his brother the Duke of Bedford, and his other faithful nobles.
He gave them his advice that England should establish a friendship with
the new Duke of Burgundy, and offer him the regency of France; that it
should not set free the royal princes who had been taken at Agincourt;
and that, whatever quarrel might arise with France, England should
never make peace without holding Normandy. Then, he laid down his head,
and asked the attendant priests to chant the penitential psalms. Amid
which solemn sounds, on the thirty-first of August, one thousand four
hundred and twenty-two, in only the thirty-fourth year of his age and
the tenth of his reign, King Henry the Fifth passed away.
Slowly and mournfully they carried his embalmed body in a procession of
great state to Paris, and thence to Rouen where his Queen was: from
whom the sad intelligence of his death was concealed until he had been
dead some days. Thence, lying on a bed of crimson and gold, with a
golden crown upon the head, and a golden ball and sceptre lying in the
nerveless hands, they carried it to Calais, with such a great retinue
as seemed to dye the road black. The King of Scotland acted as chief
mourner, all the Royal Household followed, the knights wore black
armour and black plumes of feathers, crowds of men bore torches, making
the night as light as day; and the widowed Princess followed last of
all. At Calais there was a fleet of ships to bring the funeral host to
Dover. And so, by way of London Bridge, where the service for the dead
was chanted as it passed along, they brought the body to Westminster
Abbey, and there buried it with great respect.