Henry V: pocket GIANTS E-Book

A. J. Pollard

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 116

Beschreibung

Henry V is the best-known military hero in English history: better known than Marlborough or Wellington, or his grandfather, Edward III. He enjoyed more success against the French than any of them, coming tantalisingly close to conquering that vast country and imposing an English dynasty; this in a reign of just nine years, in only seven of which he was at war. Even before he died the heroic myth, later enshrined by Shakespeare, was being created. His victories have become the touchstone of English nationalism, English militarism and English imperialism. For good or ill, Henry V now signifies the one-time 'Greatness of England'. He was a military genius, yet his megalomania was not always in the best interests of his own kingdom, let alone the people of France who suffered at his hands. Behind the carefully constructed nationalist myth was a cold, calculating, ruthless ruler who, before his early death, revealed ominous tyrannical tendencies.

Leseprobe

For Magnus, another pocket giant

Acknowledgements

I was commissioned to write a short life that was opinionated and ‘with attitude’. I hope I have not disappointed in that respect and have not upset too many of my colleagues as a result. They know that I am not a great admirer of Henry of Monmouth. The format, which reduces the scholarly apparatus to a minimum, does not allow me to acknowledge their work as directly as I would have liked. Many of them, who are contributors to a collection of new essays on Henry V edited by Gwilym Dodd, will recognise the borrowed line, the lifted detail, the sentiment here or the slant there. Thank you. In addition, I would like to thank Keith Dockray for allowing me to plunder his survey of the historiography, Dick Kaeuper for giving me confidence to be blunt about chivalry, Tig Lang for putting me right on Henry V’s facial wound and Tony Morris for twisting my arm.

Eryholme,

12 June 2013

Contents

Title page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction ‘His deeds exceed all speech’

1 ‘So blest a son’: Childhood and Youth, 1386–1406

2 ‘Riot and dishonour stain the brow’: Prince Hal in Politics, 1406–13

3 ‘Presume not that I am the thing I was’: The New King, 1413–14

4 ‘Now thrive the armourers’: Preparation for War, 1414–15

5 ‘The game’s afoot’: Harfleur and Agincourt, 1415

6 ‘Once more into the breach’: The Conquest of Normandy, 1416–19

7 ‘The vasty fields of France’: War and Peace, 1419–22

8 ‘Gentlemen in England now abed’: The Home Front, 1417–22

9 ‘We in it shall be remembered’: Apotheosis and Reputation

10 ‘This star of England’: Assessment

Appendix Henry V’s Portrait

Map

Family Tree

Notes

Further Reading

Glossary

Timeline

Copyright

Introduction

‘His deeds exceed all speech’1

It snowed heavily the day Henry V was crowned: 9 April, Palm Sunday, 1413. Writing a few years later, Thomas Walsingham, the resident chronicler at St Albans abbey, recalled two interpretations of this unseasonable weather. Some thought it portended that the new king would be cold hearted and rule his subjects harshly; others took it as an omen that vice would be frozen and new virtues would flourish in the coming spring. In the event, as Walsingham surely intended his readers to understand, both were right. Henry proved to be a cold-hearted, ruthless monarch, yet his rule also represented a new beginning and gave his nation fresh hope after the troubled reigns of his predecessors.

This King of England, whose reign had such a chilly start, was a giant of his age. Not simply because he was a great and famous warrior and a paragon of military virtue. He was a giant because he imposed himself on his contemporaries. He was feared, famed and respected by all, his enemies as well as his friends. He truly bestrode his world.

Thanks to Shakespeare, Henry V is the best-known military hero in English history; more famous even than Marlborough or Wellington, let alone his mighty great-grandfather, King Edward III, who reigned for over fifty years. He enjoyed more success against the French, the ancient enemy, than any of them, coming tantalisingly close to conquering that vast country and imposing an English dynasty. He did this in a reign of just nine years, seven years of which he was at war. Even before he died at the tender age of 35, the myth of his greatness was being created, and it was further honed in subsequent decades. Shakespeare’s play has become the touchstone of English national pride, English courage and English imperialism. For good or ill, Henry V embodies the military might of England.

He was a remarkably successful soldier, yet his warrior skills were not always deployed in the best interests of his kingdom, let alone the people of Wales or France who suffered at his hands. Serious questions arise concerning his judgement. Was a war of conquest in France really sustainable? Did he damage his own realm in pursuit of foreign glory? Was he truly a figure of Christian piety and virtue? Or did there lie behind the carefully constructed chivalric image, a cold, calculating and manipulative autocrat?

These are some of the questions this book explores. It seeks to explain why Henry V was so successful, so admired and so idolised. But this is not another exercise in hero-worship. There is no doubt that Henry V was an awe-inspiring man, a charismatic leader, an astute politician, a gifted administrator and a brilliant general. However, Thomas Walsingham’s hope of a new beginning was to prove an illusion, and the tragic legacy of Henry’s nine hectic years on the throne was embroilment in an unwinnable war and domestic problems stored for the future.

1

‘So blest a son’: Childhood and Youth, 1386–14062

Henry V was born at Monmouth on 16 September 1386. He was not expected to become king. But he was in direct line of succession to the throne, as great-grandson of King Edward III, grandson of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and eldest son of Henry of Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby. The house of Lancaster was the most powerful in England under the throne and ‘Time-honoured’ Gaunt was the mightiest of magnates, a European prince and by far the king’s richest subject, with hundreds of lords and knights retained in his service throughout the realm. Bolingbroke, Henry’s father, was a great noble in his own right and a young man of chivalric renown. He became embroiled in the factional politics of King Richard II’s court during Gaunt’s absence overseas in the years 1386–89. He then set out himself on foreign ventures, first on crusade to Prussia and then on pilgrimage to the Holy Land between 1390 and 1393.

The boy Henry saw little of his father, but this was not unusual: until the age of 7 noble children were usually cared for in their mother’s household. When he later became king, he remembered his nurse, Joan Waryn, to whom he granted an annuity of £20. His mother, Mary Bohun, the joint heiress to the Earldom of Hereford, died in June 1394. What impact her death had on the 7-year-old we do not know, although he commissioned an image for her tomb in the church of St Mary de Castro in Leicester on his accession to the throne. Throughout his life he remained close to his maternal grandmother, Joan, the dowager countess who almost certainly influenced his religious development.

He may already have moved, when he was 7, to the household of his grandfather for the customary next stage of his upbringing. Here, as well as military training (he attended his first tournament when he was 10) and schooling in the arts of hunting and falconry, he received a liberal education. His tutor was his young uncle Henry Beaufort, later the Cardinal Bishop of Winchester, one of Gaunt’s sons by Katherine Swynford. Young Henry was supplied with grammar books and learnt to play the harp. When he was still only 12 he joined the household of King Richard himself – at which point his childhood was dramatically and prematurely brought to an end.

In normal times, entering the royal household would have been unexceptional. But times were far from normal. In 1398 Henry’s father, Bolingbroke, had clashed with the king and had been exiled for ten years. Gaunt had secured an undertaking that, should he die, his heir, now Duke of Hereford, would be able to enter his vast Lancastrian inheritance. After Gaunt’s death in 1399, the king broke his promise and took the estates into his own hands. Bolingbroke, in Paris, made immediate plans to return to England to recover his right. Richard II, who must surely have anticipated such a reaction, nevertheless pressed on with an expedition to Ireland. With him he took young Henry of Monmouth, to whom he had granted an annuity of £500. Later it was said that a personal bond developed between man and boy, Richard taking the emotional place left vacant by an absent and distant father.

Richard II left the kingdom in charge of his uncle, the Duke of York. He was still in Ireland when Bolingbroke landed at Ravenspur on the coast of Yorkshire. Bolingbroke claimed that he had returned only to recover his rightful inheritance and reform the misgovernnment of the realm. In this he received considerable support, not only from his own and his late father’s numerous Lancastrian followers, but also from neutrals such as the powerful Earl of Northumberland. When, a week or two later, Richard II hurriedly returned to North Wales, Henry was already, in effect, in command of the kingdom. The Duke of York had defected; Bristol had fallen; and Chester, the heartland of Ricardian loyalty, had been secured against the king. The Earl of Northumberland was sent to meet the outnumbered monarch at Conwy and Richard was taken into custody.

Bolingbroke and his advisers judged that it was better to hazard usurpation than face the certainty of eventual failure if he forced his rule on a vengeful king. Thus, on 30 September 1399, Richard II ‘abdicated’ and a new king, calling himself Henry IV, assumed the throne. Despite repeated assurances that Bolingbroke only wished to see reform of the government and that the imprisoned former king would come to no harm, he was dead shortly afterwards.

Henry of Monmouth, who had been left in safekeeping by Richard II in Ireland, returned to England and was reunited with his father, a comparative stranger, in time for the coronation which took place on 13 October. At the ceremony he carried the sword of justice. Two days later he was created Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Earl of Chester and Duke of Aquitaine – and shortly afterwards granted the additional title of Duke of Lancaster. Over the next year an independent household was established for him, financed by the revenues from Wales, Cornwall and Chester (Henry held only the titles of the other two duchies). By the time of his fourteenth birthday in September 1400 he was treated as a young adult. But of course he was under his father’s tutelage.

Henry’s military education and training were completed in the field. He had already, in 1399, campaigned under Richard II’s wing in Ireland. Now he joined his father with a retinue of over a hundred men under his nominal command on an abortive invasion of Scotland in the summer of 1400. That autumn, a revolt by a leading Welsh landowner, Owain Glyn Dwr, drew the king, with his son still in his company, into a punitive raid into North Wales. He then installed the English prince in Chester, supported by a council under the leadership of Henry ‘Hotspur’ Percy, the heir to the Earl of Northumberland. In the spring of 1401, the Welsh rebellion burst into life again. Hotspur, with the prince in his company, secured the important castle town of Conwy, but was unable to prevent the rising against English rule from spreading.

In the autumn of 1402, from his northern mountain sanctuary, Owain was co-ordinating raids throughout the whole of Wales, having declared himself to be the true prince of that land. King Henry IV responded by mounting a three-pronged invasion, with Prince Harry nominally leading an army from Chester. This achieved little other than the relief and revictualling of the North Welsh castles. To add to royal woes, friction developed within the English camp. Hotspur, whose brother-in-law Sir Edmund Mortimer had been captured by the Welsh, was in favour of negotiation and compromise; Henry IV was adamantly against. After a blazing row, Hotspur resigned (or was removed from) his post. On 7 March 1403, the prince was formally sworn in as his father’s lieutenant in Wales. He was now in full independent command. His first action was to raid and sack Glyn Dwr’s home at Sycharth. Still only 16, the precocious youth was already a veteran of six campaigns. His grandfather Gaunt had not gone on his first campaign until he was that age; his father not until he was 18.

Henry was shortly to be blooded in a horrific way, in the most ferocious battle fought for decades on English soil. He had been in the saddle frequently since 1399, and had learnt first hand about the rigours of forced marches, the routine revictualling of remote strongholds, the cruelty of plundering raids and the taking of reprisals. But he had yet to fight in a set-piece battle. Now he was pitched into bloody combat against Hotspur, the flower of chivalry. Knowing that Henry IV was marching north on a second Scottish campaign, Percy had hoped to surprise the adolescent prince, link up with Glyn Dwr and turn on the king. But Henry IV had rapidly diverted and marched back to join his son outside Shrewsbury – just in time to confront Hotspur.

The 16-year-old led the advance against the fearsome Cheshire archers whom Hotspur had recruited to his cause. As he marched forward, Prince Henry was struck by an arrow in his cheek. He broke off the shaft and pressed on without hesitation to engage in the hand-to-hand melee that was a medieval battle. In the end he and his father won the day. The arrow that hit Hotspur killed him; that which hit the prince entered 6 inches into the back of his lower skull – but he survived. The arrow had to be removed by an agonising operation which involved the surgeon devising a special tool to insert and clamp on the head embedded in the bone. Thereafter Henry carried a scar close to his nose. It is not clear how disfigured he was, as it was never referred to publicly, but the scar may explain why, uniquely among English monarchs, his official portrait was made in profile (see appendix). After Shrewsbury no one ever doubted his courage and few dared cross the man carrying this mark of honour. His military apprenticeship was complete. War and all that it entailed was etched on his face.