1415: Henry V's Year of Glory (18 page)

Although this truce only applied to one of the Spanish kingdoms, Castile and Léon, the regent of that kingdom was Ferdinand, king of Aragon. Hence Aragon and Castile were bound as one political unit. On top of this, the dowager queen of Castile was Henry’s aunt, Catalina, and the young king of Castile was his cousin. King Ferdinand of Aragon had himself sought a league with Henry from the start of the reign. So the interweaving of Spanish and English dynasties and diplomatic agreements meant that, as long as he could prevent English pirates from ransacking the Spanish ships, Henry had nothing to fear from the kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula. Not only would they not attack England, they would not fight for France.
⁸⁵

Tuesday 26th

By now readers will have become familiar with the sorts of payments one finds on the Issue Rolls. Payments fall more or less into the categories of administration, reimbursement of messengers’ and ambassadors’ expenses, rewards for good service, measures for the defence of Wales, the north and Calais, money handed over to the king’s chamber, and, to a limited extent, gathering supplies for the forthcoming expedition. Today’s payments touch on most of these areas. Robert Thresk and three other exchequer clerks were given 35 marks in recognition of their recent work and expenses in the exchequer. The sum handed over to the officers of the king’s chamber for the king’s personal use amounted to £1,331 18s 9d. Robert Umphraville, custodian of the castle of Roxburgh, was paid 100 marks for the wages of his men-at-arms and archers remaining there. Various messengers were sent to the sheriffs to collect the first instalment of the tax granted at the last parliament, which was due at Candlemas (2 February). Messengers were similarly sent out with letters under the great seal to the archbishop of York, the bishop of Durham and the bishop of Carlisle to ask, on behalf of the exchequer, who would be collecting the two tenths granted by the convocation of York in January.

While the king of Scotland was a prisoner in England, the kingdom of Scotland was ruled by a regent, the duke of Albany. It so happened that the duke’s son, Mordach, earl of Fife, was also in an English prison. While the elderly duke did not particularly want to see King James return to Scotland, he was very anxious that his son should be returned to him. Henry was wisely biding his time on the prospect of returning the earl. Today’s payments include one of 10 marks towards his upkeep in the Tower of London.

Finally, and at long last, we come to a payment which is a rare sign of human warmth in Henry. It states that Roger Castle esquire was paid for carriage of 250 wainscotes and regale to make doors, windows and other works to ‘a chamber in the water under Kenilworth Castle’.
⁸⁶
This was the ‘Pleasance in the Marsh’, a timber house about half a mile from Kenilworth Castle, on the other side of the lake there. Most kings had some form of retreat from the world at one or other of their palaces: a place where they could be alone with their friends.
Edward II had used a cottage and garden in the grounds of the abbey of Westminster which he called
Burgoyne
(Burgundy).
⁸⁷
Richard II had a summer house built on an island in the Thames near Sheen Manor which he called
La Neyte.
⁸⁸
Like Richard II’s house, Henry’s
Pleasance
was surrounded by water and intended for small parties on hot days in summer.
⁸⁹
Apart from the extravagant goldsmith’s work under tomorrow’s date, it is one of the very few personal indulgences of a relaxed or luxurious nature to be found in connection with Henry V throughout the whole of the year.

Wednesday 27th

The penultimate day of the month saw further payments recorded on the Issue Rolls.
⁹⁰
Thomas Chaucer, the king’s butler, paid £31 to Sir Roger Leche for wines imported from Bordeaux which had been intended for the king’s household. Somewhat extravagantly, Henry’s officers paid the huge sum of £976 to William Randolph of London, goldsmith, ‘for making 12 dishes of pure gold, four dozen chargers of silver and eight dozen silver dishes for the king’s use’.
⁹¹
Sadly the gold dishes did not long survive; they had been pawned or sold off by the time of the king’s inventory in 1422, probably to pay the wages of soldiers.

There were, of course, more payments towards the war. Richard Porter was paid for more iron spades. Henry Bower and his staff were paid another £5 for making bows ‘for the king’s work’. And a messenger was sent with a letter under the privy seal to the mayor of Bristol for ‘certain necessary reasons contained in the letter’.

Far more important – and much more helpful in determining what was going on in terms of Henry’s secret diplomacy – is this entry:

To Richard Clitherowe and Reginald Curteis esquires ordered by the lord the King to go to Zeeland and Holland to treat as well with the duke of Holland and other persons of those parts to provide ships for the king’s present voyage in person, to accompany him abroad … £2,000.
⁹²

This, it must be remembered, is not an instruction to negotiate but a
payment
. And it is a huge one. Although the actual commissions for these men to obtain the ships were not issued until April, the handing over of so much cash at this stage implies that Henry already knew where he could obtain sufficient ships for his voyage. It also implies that he knew the duke of Holland would accede to his request. And that in turn implies that the duke of Holland knew that his brother-in-law and ally, John the Fearless, would not try to stop Henry.

Now we can see what Thomas Chaucer had been doing on the king’s secret business to the duke of Holland the previous year; and Philip Morgan on his mission, too. And Lord Scrope on his various missions to Burgundy. Henry had been working on the lords of Burgundy and Holland so that they would help him transport his army to France, and not impede his progress against the French king when he got there.

Viewed in the wider perspective of Henry’s diplomacy and dynastic links, these secret negotiations were even more significant. Henry now had a long-standing alliance with Portugal. He had in place a truce with Castile – and by implication Aragon. He had both the king of Scotland and the regent’s son in his prisons. The kingdom of Sweden, Denmark and Norway was ruled by the husband of his deeply religious sister, Philippa, whom he had just flattered by asking to send some Bridgettine nuns for his new monastery at Syon. His embassy at Constance was at that moment negotiating with Sigismund for a treaty. As for his French and Low Countries alliances: the dukes of Brittany and Burgundy had both agreed they would not intervene in a struggle between Henry and the king of France. And the duke of Holland was planning actually to assist Henry in his expedition.

The French king and his Armagnac advisers had no way of knowing it, but even as they rejoiced in the proclamation of the Peace of Arras, two of the French dukes had secret alliances with the king of England. The French king’s insistence that any such alliances should be torn up was futile. It remained to be seen what the other members of the Burgundian alliance would do. But in every other diplomatic respect, Henry had outmanoeuvred the French.

March

Friday 1st

AT DIJON, MARTIN PORÉE
, bishop of Arras, was about to set out on his journey to Constance. His mission was to represent John the Fearless at the council. As was becoming clear to all, the council had teeth; it was prepared to tackle difficult questions. In particular, it was prepared to discuss the boundaries of heresy. This had important implications for rulers who claimed to reign by divine right, for it touched upon the nature of treason. Dr Jean Gerson had just arrived (yesterday) at Constance, and his forthcoming speeches were bound to favour the Armagnacs. What might he say about the late Jean Petit’s
Justification of the duke of Burgundy
? Did that document amount to heresy, as Dr Gerson had stated in Paris? If so, was John the Fearless guilty of supporting heresy? What was to stop the king of France ordering a crusade against him?

Martin Porée was not John the Fearless’s only representative. Pierre Cauchon had already set out for Constance. A Burgundian nobleman called Gautier de Ruppes was also about to set out. All three of these men were eloquent speakers and highly respected for their judgment. Porée was especially noted for his deep, loud voice; when he spoke, people listened. John carefully briefed each of them. They were not permitted to accept gifts from anyone at the council. Nor were they to dine or sup with any member of the council outside their own lodgings. They were sworn to the secrecy of their mission. And they were empowered to bribe cardinals, archbishops and bishops in order to protect the good name of the late Jean Petit and the legal standing of his
Justification.
¹

John the Fearless could withstand being accused of treason. Being condemned as a heretic was quite another matter.

*

This same day, Pope John XXIII came before the council with a third form of his resignation. This had been drawn up by representatives of the English, French and German nations, and was now deemed suitable for publication. John read it aloud himself in person, as he had been instructed.

I, Pope John XXIII, for the repose of the whole people of Christ do offer, promise and pledge myself, swear and vow to God and the Church and this holy council willingly and freely to give peace to the Church by way of my own simple abdication and to do this and to put it into effect according to the decision of this present council, if and when Pedro de Luna and Angelo Corrario, known in their obedience as Benedict XIII and Gregory XII, likewise renounce in person or by their legal proctors their pretension to the papal office; the same promise to hold in case of either one’s resignation or death or other event, whenever unity might be bestowed on the Church of God and the present schism terminated by my abdication.
²

This version omitted the antagonistic statements about John XXIII’s rival popes being schismatics and heretics and cut all reference to the Holy Roman Emperor taking force against them unless they abdicated. Dr Gerson and the other newly-arrived delegates from the University of Paris had spent their first night at Constance deliberating it. Gerson’s advice was given special weight – at the council of Pisa he had foreseen the problems that would arise from electing a replacement pope before the other two had been forced to resign. Now he declared the form of words to be acceptable.

So it was that the pope who had summoned the council of Constance together was forced to agree to his own abdication. There could have been no stronger message to the rest of Christendom that this council meant business. Combined with the knowledge that Pope Gregory too would resign shortly, and that Sigismund would himself travel to France to seek the resignation of Benedict XIII, it seemed
that the Almighty had intervened in men’s hearts to bring about the re-unification of the Church under one pope.

All eyes now looked to Constance. Some looked to it for the reformation of the Church, others for the future course of the papacy, and still more for the eradication of heresy and the divine signal to exterminate the Lollards. A few lords looked in that direction to fight their own political battles on a holy platform. Others, including the Lollards, just looked on in fear.

Sunday 3rd

At Westminster, the great charter for the endowment of Henry’s Bridgettine foundation at Syon was sealed today. It began with an exemplification of the spiritual virtues of founding monasteries, in order to please God, following the example of Henry’s distinguished ancestors. These sentiments were predictable, wholly in line with Henry’s extreme religiosity. One line in the preamble, however, does stand out. It states that Henry was inspired to found this abbey having been ‘moved by the grace of the Almighty, in whose hands are the hearts of kings, and according to the scripture “he will turn where He wills”’.
³
These words (
ubi voluerit inclinabit
) were a biblical quotation (from Proverbs 21: 1) but they were also to be found in the first law of the first book of the
Codex Justinianus
, a key text in civil law, and so would have been well known to Henry’s advisers. This particular law was entitled ‘About the Trinity of the Holy Catholic faith, so that no one may dispute it publicly’. It was effectively a justification for stamping out heresy. As the same law said, ‘kings rule by their tongues’ (Proverbs 16: 102), so the justification for no one disobeying kings lay in the fact that what kings said was moved by God. This was absolute kingship writ in divine logic: Henry was not just
king
by divine right, his very rule was divinely inspired because his heart was in God’s hands.

If any one aspect of Henry as a historical individual has not been fully appreciated down the centuries, it is his position as an absolutist monarch: a king sanctioned by God to wield complete power over all his subjects. We can see elements of this in his motto
une sanz pluis
and the philosophy that the king should be the master of all his peers.
In the phrase ‘he will turn where He wills’ we can see it more fully formed: Henry saw himself as a ruler who was above the law, answerable only to God. This is not to say he could do no wrong – he could still lose a battle or fall ill, which would demonstrate that he had offended God in some way – but Henry was less answerable to his people than even his predecessors as kings. Most significantly, his absolutism was largely of his own making. His father had preferred to debate the merits of his legitimacy and rule with rebellious friars, Members of Parliament and his confessor. It was perhaps the most profound debate of the later middle ages. Society was changing – religiously and socially – and people were asking whether the agents of change were acting in accordance with the will of God or against it. Henry was not alone in seeking to equate all questioning of ecclesiastical and secular authority as contrary to the will of God.