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English Men of Action
HENRY THE FIFTH
[Illustration]
[Illustration: HENRY THE FIFTH
From a Picture in the possession of Queen’s College, Oxford.]
HENRY THE FIFTH
BY
THE REV. A. J. CHURCH
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1889
_The right of translation and reproduction is reserved_
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
THE BOYHOOD OF HENRY 1
CHAPTER II
PRINCE HENRY AND PRINCE HAL 7
CHAPTER III
PRINCE HENRY AND THE CHIEF JUSTICE 22
CHAPTER IV
THE CHARGES AGAINST PRINCE HENRY 30
CHAPTER V
ACCESSION TO THE THRONE 43
CHAPTER VI
THE FRENCH CROWN 50
CHAPTER VII
PREPARATIONS FOR WAR 59
CHAPTER VIII
THE INVASION OF FRANCE 67
CHAPTER IX
AGINCOURT 76
CHAPTER X
AFTER AGINCOURT 88
CHAPTER XI
HENRY AND THE LOLLARDS 97
CHAPTER XII
HENRY AND QUEEN JOANNA 105
CHAPTER XIII
THE SECOND CAMPAIGN IN FRANCE 109
CHAPTER XIV
HENRY’S MARRIAGE 123
CHAPTER XV
THE SIEGE OF MELUN 131
CHAPTER XVI
THE LAST CAMPAIGNS 137
CHAPTER XVII
THE DEATH OF HENRY 144
CHAPTER I
THE BOYHOOD OF HENRY
Henry was born in the castle of Monmouth on August 9th, 1387. He was
the eldest of the six children of Henry of Lancaster by Mary de Bohun,
younger daughter and co-heiress of Humphrey de Bohun.[1] Humphrey,
as the last male descendant of the De Bohuns, united in himself the
dignities and estates of the Earls of Hereford, Northampton, and Essex.
The elder daughter, Eleanor, was married to Thomas of Woodstock,
youngest son of Edward the Third. Eleanor’s husband hoped to secure
the whole of the Hereford estates, amounting, it is said, to fifty
thousand nobles of annual income (not less, it may be calculated,
than two hundred thousand pounds of money at its present value). He
took charge of his sister-in-law, and had her carefully instructed in
theology, intending that she should take the veil in a convent of the
Sisters of St. Clare. John of Gaunt had other views for her future. He
took occasion of his younger brother’s absence in France to have her
removed to Arundel Castle, where she was very soon afterwards married
to his son Henry. She died in 1394 in her twenty-fifth year. She was
better educated, it appears, than most of the ladies of her day, and
it would seem that some of her taste for books descended to her son.
The character of Henry of Lancaster has been variously estimated. He
won in his youth a high reputation for enterprise and courage. We
find him fighting against the Mahommedans in Barbary in one year,
and in the next against the Pagan tribes of Lithuania. His skill in
all martial exercises was conspicuously great. But, according to one
account, he was so stained with crime that his own father wished him
to be put to death. He was a bold and probably an unscrupulous man,
whom circumstances exposed to a very strong temptation. The weaknesses
and vices of Richard the Second put the throne within his reach. We
can easily believe that he really felt himself better qualified to
rule than his feeble and capricious cousin, and it is just possible
that he may have persuaded himself or been persuaded by others that
there was something in his claim of hereditary right to the throne. The
power unjustly gained was retained by the methods to which an usurper
is commonly driven, by falsehood and by cruelty. Former friends were
betrayed--as, for example, the Lollards, who certainly had helped him
to the throne--and enemies were ruthlessly crushed. The power thus
won and maintained descended to his son in happier circumstances. The
younger Henry’s title was not seriously questioned. There was, it
is true, a conspiracy against him, but it was not supported by any
formidable party in the nation. A great success, won early in his
reign, made him the object of popular enthusiasm. At the same time he
had the advantage of a singularly attractive exterior: the hereditary
beauty of the Plantagenets was conspicuous in him. And he was _felix
opportunitate mortis_: he died before the lustre of his achievements
and the charm of his personal qualities were dimmed by failure and
the corrupting influences that wait on power. It was with him as it
would have been with the Black Prince if he had died after Poictiers.
Yet, allowing for some differences of a finer organisation, it is not
difficult to see some of the main characteristics of the fourth Henry
in his more fortunate son.
If tradition may be trusted, the young Henry was a delicate child, and
was put out to be nursed at a village near Monmouth. The cradle in
which he had lain was long shown as a curiosity at Bristol, and the
name of his nurse, Joan Waring, appears in the public accounts, from
which we learn that an annuity of twenty pounds was settled upon her
after her foster-son’s accession to the throne.
The household-book of John of Gaunt gives some interesting glimpses
of the lad’s education. We have an item of money paid for strings for
his harp, and another of four shillings expended on seven books of
grammar for his use. The continued weakness of his health may be seen
in the payment of a courier who announced to his father the fact of his
alarming illness.
He had just entered on his twelfth year when his father was banished.
He remained in England, probably under the care of his grandfather.
But John of Gaunt died in the February following his son’s banishment,
and a few weeks afterwards Henry of Lancaster’s estates were seized
by the Crown on the ground that he had slandered the King, and was
consorting with his enemies abroad. The young Henry accompanied Richard
to Ireland, and was sent to the castle of Trim in Meath, the ancient
meeting-place of the Irish Parliament. He seems to have been kindly
treated, and received the honour of knighthood from the King’s hands.
He was left behind in Ireland in company with his cousin, the young
Duke of Gloucester, when Richard returned to England in July. On August
18th Richard was made prisoner. The young Henry was immediately sent
for, and was brought to England in a ship furnished by a citizen of
Chester. At Chester he met his father, whom he accompanied to London.
On September 29th Richard, who was now in the Tower, signed a deed of
abdication: on the 30th Parliament met and declared him to be deposed;
and on the same day the Duke of Lancaster was seated on the throne by
the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.
Henry is said to have been created Prince of Wales by his father on
the day of his coronation. At least we find him in possession of that
dignity a fortnight afterwards, when the King grants to his “most
dear eldest son Henry, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of
Chester, the custody and rights of all lands of heirs under age in the
principality of Wales and the counties of Chester and Flynt,” and also
orders him to be put in possession of the revenues of the duchy of
Cornwall. The Council also had to consider where he should reside, and
what establishment should be kept up for him.
Before long negotiations were entered upon for his marriage. Towards
the end of the year a mission was sent to the King of France,
proposing in general terms alliances between the two royal families.
The proposal was rejected contemptuously. The King of France knew
of no King of England but his son-in-law Richard. Before many weeks
were past, Richard was dead--by what means it does not belong to
our present purpose to inquire--leaving a virgin widow, Isabella of
Valois. Isabella, eldest of the five daughters of Charles the Sixth of
France and Isabeau of Bavaria, was then in her thirteenth year. She
had all the beauty of her race, and would be a richly-dowered bride.
Henry lost no time in asking her hand for his eldest son. The demand
was not welcome either to the French Court, which was not disposed to
recognise Henry’s title, or to the young lady herself, who seems to
have cherished a fond recollection of her husband. It was renewed more
than once with the same ill-success. Henry was afterwards to win for
himself by a very rough wooing a bride of the same house, the youngest
of Isabella’s sisters.
If we are to believe a local tradition, the young Henry studied for a
time at Queen’s College, Oxford, under the care of his uncle Henry,
afterwards Cardinal Beaufort, whom we know to have been Chancellor of
the University during the two years 1397–8. The Chancellor was then
a resident officer, performing the functions now delegated to the
Vice-Chancellor.
Queen’s College had been founded in 1341 by Robert Eglesfield under the
auspices of Philippa, Queen of Edward the Third, and might therefore
be considered a specially appropriate residence for princes of the
Plantagenet line. A room in the college over the gateway that fronts
St. Edmund’s Hall was long shown as having been occupied by Prince
Henry. His portrait was to be seen painted on the glass of the window,
while an inscription in Latin recorded (it disappeared with the gateway
early in the last century) the fact that “Henry V, conqueror of his
enemies and of himself, was once the great inhabitant of this little
chamber.” This glass is now in the upper library. It is difficult to
estimate the precise value of such a tradition. There is no documentary
evidence to confirm it; on the other hand, it is not intrinsically
unlikely. Henry had some of the tastes of a student. This fact and the
academical standing of his uncle might have suggested a residence at
Oxford as a useful way of employing some of his time. Such a residence,
if it ever took place, must be assigned to some time between October
1399 and March 1400–1. At the latter date he had begun to take a part
in public affairs, for we find on March 10th, 1400–1, that King Henry
grants, “on the supplication of his most dear son, the Prince of
Wales,” a pardon to all the rebels of four counties of North Wales,
with three exceptions, of whom Owen Glendower is one. Thenceforth his
name occurs, as will be seen, continuously in the State documents of
the time.