THE SECOND CAMPAIGN IN FRANCE
The time was now come when Henry was to make his great effort for the
conquest of France. The first necessity was to provide for the safe
passage of the army by clearing the Channel of the enemy’s ships.
This was done by the Earl of Huntingdon. He met nine ships, which had
been hired by the French king from the Republic of Genoa, sank three
of them, and captured three more with their admiral and a large sum
of money. On July 23rd the army started from Southampton. In addition
to one thousand pioneers and other workmen, it numbered twenty-five
thousand five hundred and twenty-eight combatants, of whom between
sixteen and seventeen thousand were men-at-arms. The transporting fleet
consisted of about fifteen hundred ships of all sizes.
No attempt was made to oppose the landing of the army. The disaster of
Agincourt had so far broken the courage of the French that they had no
idea of meeting the English in the field. The plan of campaign seems to
have been that the fortified towns should be garrisoned as strongly as
possible, and the invading force left to exhaust itself by the effort
of taking them. Two or three sieges, as costly to the conquerors as
that of Harfleur had been, would leave little to be done by way of
active operations for the defence of the country. The plan, we shall
see, failed of success. Henry was earlier in the field than he had been
in the campaign of Agincourt, his army was better furnished for siege
operations, he had acquired new experience, and he had the advantage of
a more favourable season.
Castles and walled towns fell in rapid succession into the hands of the
English. Touques, a royal castle, which was the first to be assaulted,
offered some resistance. The garrison made a vigorous sally upon the
besiegers, and held out for two days against the incessant cannonade
with which it was plied. But on August 3rd (the army had landed on the
first of the month) it was agreed that if the place were not relieved
in six days it should be surrendered. Relieving force indeed there was
none, and the scattered garrisons throughout Normandy soon realised
the hopelessness of their situation. Damvilliers, Harcourt, Evreux,
and other places were surrendered without a struggle. Monstrelet says
that the other towns in the duchy were astonished at the facility of
the English conquests, and that scarcely any place attempted a defence.
And he goes on to give a reason which must have been at least as potent
for this result as any demoralisation caused by the remembrance of
the English victories. It was due, he says, to the divisions among
the nobles, some of whom were for the King and some for the Duke of
Burgundy, and each party was in consequence fearful of trusting the
other. Moreover, the Constable had drawn off most of the forces in the
district to be ready to act against the Duke, who was daily expected
with a large army.
Not the least important factor in Henry’s success was the admirable
order in which he kept his army. All violence and plunder were
forbidden. Ecclesiastical persons were put, as might be expected, under
a special protection, and to insult or rob one of this privileged class
was an offence to be punished with death. To the laity was offered a
similar protection if they would own the English king’s authority.
This policy, carried out with the unflinching firmness which was one
of Henry’s characteristics, at once secured the kindly feeling of the
population and made the army a more effective instrument.
About the middle of August Henry commenced the siege of Caen.
Anticipating that the garrison would destroy the suburbs and so deprive
him of the cover by help of which he could approach the town, he sent
the Duke of Clarence with a strong force to occupy them. The Duke was
just in time to save them from being burnt. Henry’s character for piety
may have had something to do in gaining for him another advantage. The
French forces had occupied St. Stephen’s Abbey, which lay outside the
town. On the approach of the English they resolved to destroy it. The
monks, on the other hand, were bent on saving it; and they did so by
secretly introducing an English force.
On the King’s arrival before the town, an attempt was made to carry
it by assault. The storming parties were repulsed with heavy loss.
Henry then set his engineers to work. Mines were carried up to the
walls, which were also battered by the cannon. When all was ready for
an assault, he offered terms to the garrison. They were refused. The
next morning the assault was delivered, every detail of the operation
having been first carefully arranged by the King. It was completely
successful, the attacking parties making their way into the town on
both sides, and this without any great loss. From first to last the
siege did not cost the English more than five hundred men, a number
which contrasts strongly with the almost disastrous expense that had
attended the capture of Harfleur. Henry, after duly returning thanks in
the cathedral, proceeded to deal with the conquered town. The castle,
which still held out, was admitted to surrender on certain conditions
if not relieved in twelve days’ time. The inhabitants generally were
mercifully treated. Indeed Henry’s conduct so raised his reputation for
clemency that many neighbouring towns at once offered to capitulate. As
usual, however, nothing was allowed to interfere with military policy.
Caen was to be made a garrison, and accordingly fifteen hundred “women
and impotent people, who were unserviceable and useless,” were sent out
of it.
After the fall of Caen, Lisieux, Alençon, and many other places
capitulated without making any attempt at resistance. A more important
gain than the possession of any city or fortress was the adherence
of the Duke of Britanny. On October 27th this Prince came under
safe-conduct to a conference with Henry. The terms of their agreement
were not precisely known; but it was certain that a truce was made
which was to be in force till the following Michaelmas. It was also
reported that the Duke kneeled to the King as to his suzerain, and
offered to hold Britanny as a fief under the English crown, or rather
the French crown as now united with that of England. Falaise, which was
surrendered on January 2nd, was the last conquest of the year 1417.
The castle did not capitulate until six weeks later.
It would be unnecessary to relate in detail the military operations
that now followed in uninterrupted succession. During the first weeks
of the new year (1417–18) Henry was active in the field, and though,
with the devoutness which so strongly characterised him, he spent Lent
in strict retirement, his brothers were busily employed. The great
successes of the year were won at Cherbourg and Rouen. Cherbourg was
taken by the Duke of Gloucester, aided by a force which the King had
ordered to be despatched from some of the western harbours of England.
The mere sight of its approach is said to have determined the surrender
of the garrison. The siege of Rouen was one of the most important
operations of the war, and as it was carried on throughout under
Henry’s superintendence it demands a more particular notice.
In May the King left Bayeux and marched up the southern bank of the
Seine. His first object was to possess himself of the strong position
of Pont de l’Arche, situate about eight miles above Rouen, and commonly
called the Key of the River. The bridge itself was held by the French
in such strength that it could not have been forced without a great
sacrifice of men. Henry accordingly marched some three miles lower down
the stream to a place where it was divided by an island. The French
followed him. While their attention was distracted by a feint (one of
the ingenious stratagems with which great commanders are so ready), the
island was occupied by a small force of English gunners. A cannonade
drove away the troops that had been left to guard the passage, and some
thousands of men then crossed without meeting any resistance. Henry now
held both banks of the Seine. He constructed a bridge of boats to join
his two camps, and in about three weeks’ time received the capitulation
of Pont de l’Arche. Leaving a considerable garrison in it, he proceeded
to invest Rouen, which was now practically isolated from the rest of
France. It was a great, and, considering the strength of the place,
even a perilous enterprise. But success would be of inestimable value:
the possession of Rouen would mean the acquisition of Normandy.
The place was very strong. It lay, not, as now, on both sides of
the river, always a circumstance adverse to effective defence, but
wholly on the northern side. The walls were high and strong, and well
supplied with artillery, with cannons of a size then unusual, and with
catapults, an engine of war which the invention of gunpowder had not
yet driven out of use. The garrison again was unusually large. There
was a local militia numbering at least fifteen thousand men, and a
force of not less than seven thousand regular troops and artillerymen.
On the other hand, the provisioning of so large a force would in
any circumstances have been a matter of difficulty. As it was, this
difficulty was enormously increased by circumstances which Henry had
doubtless taken into account. To the usual population of the town
was added a multitude of country-folk who had flocked in from the
neighbourhood to avail themselves of the shelter of the walls. And the
siege was begun so early that the harvest of the year could not be
secured.
Henry speedily completed the investment of the land side of the town.
Each of the six gates was commanded by a strong fort, and these
forts were connected by palisaded trenches. The river was rendered
impassable, both above and below, to any relieving force that might
attempt to approach the town. Chains and booms were stretched across
it, and a flotilla was brought up from Harfleur, part of which, as
it would have been dangerous to pass under the guns of the town, was
dragged over land to a point above the walls. A body of Welshmen
watched the town from the south bank of the river, and many hundreds
of Irish kernes, lightly armed and fleet of foot, accompanied the
English cavalry in their excursions into the neighbouring country. “The
greater part of them,” says Monstrelet, “had a stocking and shoe on one
foot only, while the other was quite naked. They had targets, short
javelins, and a strange sort of knives. Those who were on horseback had
no saddles, but rode excellently well on small mountain horses, and
were mounted on such panniers as are used by the carriers of corn in
parts of France. They were, however, miserably accoutred in comparison
with the English, and without any arms which could much hurt the
French, whenever they might meet them.”
This miscellaneous force was kept by their general under the strictest
discipline. He was especially careful to prevent all straggling. The
men were rigidly forbidden to lodge outside the military lines; and on
one occasion two soldiers who were discovered transgressing this order
were summarily executed.
Henry made no assault upon the town. He was too careful of the lives
of his men to waste them in so perilous an enterprise. He contented
himself with repelling the frequent sallies of the besieged, which the
strength of his lines of circumvallation and the state of readiness in
which he always kept his troops enabled him to do without serious loss.
He kept his men employed indeed with the construction of siege works,
with the driving of mines, and with the construction of systematic
approaches to the town; but his chief reliance was a blockade. The
vast population, military and civil, ordinary and extraordinary, that
crowded the walls of Rouen could not be long fed on any stores that had
been laid up in this place, while effectual measures had been taken
against the throwing in of any relief.
The first-fruits of this policy of starvation were seen in the
surrender of the fortified post of the Abbey of St. Catherine. This
was given up by the force that garrisoned it within a month of the
investment of the city, and given up because provisions had failed.
Henry’s own camp meanwhile was abundantly supplied with provisions,
furnished by stores of his own, or brought in by the parties which
ravaged the neighbouring country.
Rouen soon began to feel the pressure of famine. Its governor made
an attempt to relieve it by expelling from the town twelve thousand
non-combatants. Henry refused to let these miserable creatures pass
through his lines, and they perished by degrees under the walls. The
story of their fate is pitiable in the extreme. Some of them lingered
on till the very end of the siege. Many of the soldiers on either side
had hearts more tender, or perhaps it should be said intelligences less
alive to the necessities of the military situation, than the generals
who directed the attack and the defence of Rouen. These secretly
supplied the outcasts with such provisions as they could spare. Henry
himself departed from the severity of his policy by furnishing the
few who were left alive on Christmas Day with a meal. But neither the
Governor nor the King relented. It may be mentioned as an incident
eminently characteristic of the time, that new-born children were
raised in baskets to the top of the walls, duly baptized, and then let
down again to perish of hunger.
Henry has been severely blamed for the inhumanity that he is said to
have displayed on this occasion. It may be allowed that there have been
great soldiers who would sooner have relinquished a military advantage
than allow such misery to exist under their eyes, but Henry was not of
this type. He was a soldier first; and to his conception of a soldier’s
duty, which was to use every military advantage that fell in his way,
he subordinated everything. For wanton cruelty he had no taste: it did
not come within the scope of his business; but from cruelty that was
not wanton--that is, was dictated by some consideration of necessity or
expediency--he never shrank. There is something, it must be allowed,
that is repulsive about this, and it is made more repulsive by the
contrast which it makes with Henry’s almost ostentatious piety. This
is a contrast, however, which is apparent rather than real. Henry’s
belief that the French crown belonged to him of right was, incredible
as it may seem, a genuine conviction, even, it may be said, a religious
conviction. This feeling, it may well be believed, still further
fortified his heart against any thought of concession to mere human
weakness. As far as regards his military pitilessness he strongly
resembles Cæsar and Napoleon.
A messenger from the besieged succeeded in making his way through the
English lines and in reaching Paris. He saw the Duke of Burgundy, and
delivered in emphatic terms the message of the citizens of Rouen: “If
by your negligence we are conquered by the King of England, we shall
become the worst and bitterest enemies you have.” The Duke promised
help, a promise which greatly encouraged the town to persevere in its
defence. The oriflamme, the sacred banner of France, was indeed taken
from the Abbey of St. Denis later in the year, and an army nominally at
least intended to relieve Rouen followed it; but it never approached
the town. There was indeed no one to act for France.
This appeal, as has been said, was made to the Duke of Burgundy. The
Dauphin meanwhile had opened negotiations for peace with the English
king.
A formal peace Henry would not make. To do so would, he conceived,
be a renunciation of his claims to the French crown. Indeed he
carefully avoided conceding directly to the Dauphin the title of
Regent of France: in the commissions which were issued to the English
ambassadors he is the “Regent _so-called_.” A truce was proposed, which
was preliminary to a treaty. The English demands included all the
territories mentioned in the great Peace of Bretigny, and Guienne as
well. A stipulation was added that if the Duke should refuse to come
into this treaty the king of England should march with as many troops
as might be necessary to Paris, and deliver that city with the royal
family into the hands of the Dauphin. In return for this service he
was to have Flanders, a possession of the Dukes of Burgundy.
In an interesting document Henry sets forth for the consideration of
his ambassadors various difficulties which were involved in these
proposals. Could he, without prejudice to his right to the crown of
France, join arms with the Dauphin? Could he still receive the Duke
of Burgundy, should the Duke submit to him? Could he justly invade
Flanders while the truce was unexpired? A number of military problems
were also suggested. Finally it was asked whether the Dauphin was
qualified to conclude a valid truce.
A supplementary commission authorised the ambassadors to treat for the
hand of the Princess Katherine; and elaborate instructions were given
to them as to their action in case of a partial concession of their
demands.
The negotiations went on for a time, if not with success, at least
without coming to a manifest end. On one point the Dauphin returned
an emphatic answer. He would not join with the English king in acting
against the Duke of Burgundy. “I will never make peace,” he said, “with
the ancient enemy of my country in order to destroy a vassal.”
On November 17th the French commissioners, accompanied by the Cardinal
d’Ursins, who was to act as mediator, came to Pont de l’Arche, and
there met the English ambassadors. After a preliminary difficulty
about the language in which the proceedings of the conference should
be carried on had been disposed of, the conditions were discussed.
The French envoys presented the King with a picture of the Princess
Katherine, a present which he is said to have received with the
greatest satisfaction. But he did not abate one jot from his demands,
which indeed it is not too much to say he had made of set purpose
impossible. He claimed the hand of the Princess Katherine, the duchies
of Normandy and Acquitaine, and other principalities, all of them to be
held in his own right and without any dependence on the king of France.
The French commissioners at once rejected these terms as impossible,
and the English retorted by questioning their authority to treat. In
the end nothing was done.
Rouen was now left to its fate, and that fate was evidently close at
hand. Early in December a sally was planned, it being arranged that two
thousand men were to issue simultaneously from each of the gates. The
plan was only partially carried out, and though some loss was suffered
by the English, nothing of real importance was effected. About the
middle of the month a definite intimation was given to the inhabitants
of Rouen that they must no longer expect relief. The distress in the
town had by that time reached the point of agony. The richest among the
citizens were reduced to eating horse-flesh; the poorer were glad to
devour dogs and cats, rats and mice. Terrible stories were told that
some had eaten human flesh. According to one chronicler, not less than
fifty thousand died of starvation during the six months of the siege.
The number is incredible, but it is certain that the famine reached an
intensity that has seldom been equalled. When the last hope of relief
was gone, it became absolutely intolerable. The inhabitants rose in
revolt against the magistrates, demanding that negotiations should be
immediately opened with the besiegers. There was indeed no reason why
this should not be done, and on January 2nd the envoys of the town were
admitted to Henry’s presence. At first he refused to grant any terms:
Rouen must open its gates and admit its conqueror. A truce indeed for
eight days was allowed; but the days passed without any result being
attained. All that the English King would say was that the inhabitants
of Rouen must submit themselves absolutely to his mercy. The people
then formed a desperate resolution. They would fire their town in
several places; a great length of the wall was to be undermined and
supported temporarily with props; these were to be suddenly removed,
and the whole population was simultaneously to sally forth. All who
could bear arms were to fight their way out, while the women and
children were to endeavour to make their escape.
Henry then relented. This purpose of the people meant the destruction
of Rouen, and he did not wish to lose the chief city of Normandy. He
renewed negotiations, and terms of capitulation that were at least
tolerable were finally agreed upon. A ransom of three hundred thousand
crowns of gold was to be paid, and all material of war was to be
delivered to the King. The lives of all persons in the town, with a
few named exceptions, were to be granted to them, and all who would
swear allegiance to the King should retain their property; others might
depart. One noteworthy provision, as indicating Henry’s persuasion that
he was dealing, not with an enemy, but with rebellious subjects, was
that the King should have a space, either within or without the walls,
for the building of a palace, but that he should duly purchase such
ground from its owners.
On January 22nd Henry entered the town with his customary show of
magnificence. It was noticed, with much speculation as to the meaning
of the symbol, that a page rode behind him bearing a lance to which
a fox’s brush was attached after the manner of a pennon. His first
care, as usual, was to return thanks in the cathedral for his victory.
That done, he received the homage of the citizens. All but five of the
persons excepted from the amnesty were either pardoned or released
on payment of a fine. A noted partisan leader, Alan Blanchart, who
had treated his prisoners with great cruelty, was beheaded; and the
Vicar-General, who had excommunicated the English king, was condemned
to imprisonment for life.
The fall of Rouen was soon followed by the submission of the rest of
Normandy. Henry at once set himself to the task of administering the
province which he had acquired. He kept his court as Duke of Normandy,
wearing the robes which belonged to that dignity. The province was to
have its proper exchequer and coinage; a standard for measures was
established, and regulations were made for the conduct of trade. In
the brief opportunities that were given him Henry seems to have showed
himself a capable administrator of civil affairs. His new subjects were
impressed by the experience of a government more firm and just than
that which their native rulers had exercised.