The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's Self-Made King (82 page)

21
. Strohm,
Empty Throne,
pp. 107–8.

22
.
EC,
p. 24.

23
.
Issues,
p. 286.

24
. Morgan, ‘Shadow of Richard II’, p. 13.

25
.
Syllabus,
ii, p. 545.

26
. Given-Wilson & Curteis,
Royal Bastards,
p. 145.

27
.
Annales,
p. 340.

28
. The dialogue has been modernised from
EC,
pp. 24–5. The date is from Wylie, i, p. 278. Walsingham says ‘a few days after 25 May’ in
Annales,
p. 341.

29
. First a London jury failed to condemn them, then so did a Holborn jury. Eventually they were found guilty by the men of Islington. They were drawn to Tyburn and there hanged, the master giving a devout sermon before he died, exclaiming his innocence and forgiving his killers. Another friar made a scaffold speech in which he declared that he never intended ‘to slay the king and sons but to make them dukes of Lancaster, as they should be’.
EC,
pp. 25–6.

30
. Various writers give various dates for this battle, and differ as to whether it was led by Glendower in person. This date and Glendower’s presence in person are from
Glyn Dŵr,
p. 107.

31
.
Annales,
p. 341.

32
. Boardman,
Hotspur,
p. 145.

33
. See Wylie, iv, p. 289, for his itinerary at this time. Between 25 June and 15 August 1402 he stayed at Berkhamsted (Hertfordshire), Market Harborough (Leicestershire), Lilleshall (Shropshire), Ravendale (Lincolnshire), Lichfield and Burton-on-Trent (Staffs), Tideswell and Darley (Derbyshire) and Nottingham, as well as many places in between.

34
.
Adam Usk,
p. 161.

35
. Wylie, i, p. 293 (for the prisoners);
PROME,
1402 September, item 16.

36
. Rogers, ‘Royal Household’ (Ph.D. thesis), p. 90.

37
. Signed and sealed at Goucy 7 August 1402.
Monstrelet,
i, p. 16;
Waurin,
pp. 64–6.

38
. Henry’s reply was dated London 5 December 1402. See
Monstrelet,
i, pp. 16–18;
Waurin,
pp. 67–70.

39
. Orléans’ second letter was dated 22 March 1403. See
Monstrelet,
i, pp. 19–20 (has incorrect date of 26 March 1402);
Waurin,
pp. 73–7. Henry received it on the last day of April.

40
. Henry’s reply to Orléans’ second letter was undated. See
Monstrelet,
i, pp. 21–3;
Waurin,
pp. 77–85.

41
. Wylie, i, p. 309.

42
.
Signet Letters,
p. 41.

43
. Radford, ‘An unrecorded royal visit’, p. 259.

44
. Wylie, i, p. 310 (where it is given as five hundred marks) and ii, p. 288.

45
. Radford, ‘An unrecorded royal visit’, p. 262;
Issues,
p. 305.

46
. For his fool see
Issues,
p. 284.

47
. For this aspect of her character, see her refusal to allow her husband to send their little son as a hostage to the lord de Clisson, in Strickland,
Lives,
ii, p. 57.

48
. Strohm,
Empty Throne,
p. 157.

49
.
Issues,
p. 286.

14: A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury

  
1
. See the speech attributed to the Percys in
Eulogium,
iii, pp. 396–7.

  
2
. Particularly Adam Orleton, bishop of Hereford in the reign of Edward II, William Melton, archbishop of York during the time of Mortimer’s rule, John Stratford, archbishop of Canterbury during the Crisis of 1341, William Wykeham in relation to John of Gaunt in the 1370s, and Thomas Arundel himself in 1386. I am indebted to W. M. Ormrod, ‘Rebellion of Archbishop Scrope and the Tradition of Opposition to Royal Taxation’, for further ideas about this.

  
3
. Boardman,
Hotspur,
p. 149.

  
4
.
Brut,
ii, p. 548.

  
5
.
EC,
p. 27.

  
6
.
EHD,
p. 192.
Adam Usk,
p. 161. He fathered four children by her in the seven years after being taken captive, so the marriage must have taken place reasonably soon afterwards. The failure of parliament to appeal on his behalf suggests his loyalty was in doubt in October 1402. Edmund declared his allegiance to Glendower in a letter to Sir John Greyndour dated 13 December 1402.

  
7
.
CPR 1401–5,
p. 213.

  
8
.
PC,
pp. 203–4.

  
9
.
PC, Privy Council,
pp. 204–5.

10
. See 1 Maccabees, chapter 2; see also 1 Maccabees, chapter 14, verses 29–32, regarding Mathathias’s son, Simon, who had resisted invasions and spent much money in defending the country for the glory of the kingdom. The allusion to Hotspur – if intended – is fitting.

11
. This is presuming that the letter was sent on the same day it was written, 26 June, and took five days to reach him from Healaugh, in North Yorkshire, about 220 miles distant.

12
.
Signet Letters,
pp. 48–9;
PC,
i, pp. 206–7. For Elmyn or Helmyng Leget and his antecedents see T. E. Tout, ‘Firearms in England and the Fourteenth Century’,
EHR,
26 (1911), p. 669.

13
. Wylie notes a payment on 17 July 1403 of £8,108 for wages to four barons, twenty knights, 476 esquires and 2,500 archers. This could not relate to the present gathering, summoned to Lichfield the previous day, as the exchequer did not pay wages in advance; it might relate to the army Henry took into Wales the previous autumn. But it is perhaps indicative of the size of force which he was used to gathering, and the number of archers especially should be noted.

14
. Philip Morgan, ‘Memories of the Battle of Shrewsbury’. One of the major accounts of the battle bears a number of correlations with the classical text of Lucan, and therefore probably reflects the way the chronicler hoped his account would be understood rather than what actually happened.

15
. It is normally said that Henry personally reached Shrewsbury first (e.g. ‘Deposition’,
p. 178). This is unlikely. According to Capgrave,
Chronicle of England,
p. 282, Hotspur began to besiege Shrewsbury. If so, and if Henry was not personally at Shrewsbury but with the main army behind, this would explain how he forced a battle by arriving afterwards, and stayed the night before the battle at Haughmond Abbey, to the north-east of Berwick Field.

16
. See Appendix Four.

17
. ‘Deposition’, p. 179.

18
.
Waurin,
p. 60.

19
. Capgrave,
Chronicle of England,
p. 282 (rebel army);
HA,
ii, p. 257 (royal army). Most modern writers tend to estimate that there were twelve to fourteen thousand men in the king’s army and ten thousand with Hotspur, but these figures are little more than educated guesses.

20
. It is normally assumed that the battle was fought on a north–south axis. Given that the prince advanced from Shrewsbury and Henry from Haughmond, it is more likely that the initial confrontation was either east–west or northwest–southeast. No single source is reliable enough, and the combined narratives are too contradictory to be certain of this point.

21
.
CR,
pp. 194–5. See also
Eulogium,
iii, p. 397.

22
.
Eulogium,
iii, p. 397.

23
. ‘Deposition’, p. 179.

24
.
Waurin,
p. 61.

25
. This interpretation is supported by the most accurate of the chronicles to describe the battle, the Dieulacres chronicle. See ‘Deposition’, p. 180.

26
. ‘Deposition’, p. 180. Other sources, describing Stafford’s death with the other notables, have transposed his demise to a later stage of the battle, fighting alongside Blount and the king.

27
.
Annales,
p. 367.

28
.
Brut,
ii, p. 549.

29
.
Waurin,
p. 62.

30
. The charge of the thirty knights is reported in
Eulogium,
iii, p. 397 and
EC,
p. 28.

31
. Boardman,
Hotspur,
p. 203, argues on the strength of a reference in Gregory’s chronicle to Stafford dying in the king’s coat armour, that ‘Stafford was the only man to adopt this changed role’. However
Adam Usk,
p. 171, mentions two men in the king’s armour, and
Brut,
ii, p. 549, specifically mentions that Blount was wearing the king’s coat armour. Although some writers assume Stafford was killed alongside Blount, for the two are mentioned together in some sources, this is only because they were the most notable casualties on the king’s side. According to the Dieulacres account, Stafford was killed by a Percy arrow, a scenario very likely in view of his leading the vanguard.

32
. ‘Deposition’, p. 181.

33
. See Appendix Four.

34
. The statement that the bodies were spread over an area of three miles dates from a much later charter, and possibly relates to how far away the furthest bodies were from the battlefield; these were probably men cut down fleeing the battle. Wylie, i, p. 363.

35
. It is usually said that the initiative for the church was local, and only later taken up by the king. This is true in so far as it was a local cleric who presented the
petition to Henry in 1406 to alienate the land for the church. However, petitions do not always demonstrate the petitioner’s initiative. Many were as the result of a prior discussion with the king.
Adam Usk,
p. 171, states that Henry swore to build a chapel there for the souls of the dead. It may be that the 1406 petition merely marks the formal beginning of the bureaucratic paper trail, a response by a designated man to Henry’s initiative.

36
.
Waurin,
pp. 63–4. The text ends ‘he maintained and loved justice above all things, and besides was a very handsome prince, learned, and eloquent, courteous, valiant and brave in arms, and in short was filled with every virtue such as was none of his predecessors before his time’.

37
. Wylie, iv, p. 366.

38
.
Eulogium,
iii, p. 397;
Annales,
pp. 372–3.

39
. Given-Wilson, ‘Quarrels of Old Women’.

40
.
EHD,
p. 195.

15: Treason’s True Bed

  
1
. Quoted from Chris Given-Wilson’s translation of the Durham newsletter in
PROME,
1404 January, appendix.

  
2
.
PROME,
1404 January, introduction.

  
3
.
Eulogium,
iii, p. 400. The gaoler is unnamed. It would either have been Thomas Swynford or Robert Waterton.

  
4
.
PROME,
1404 January, introduction.

  
5
. It was the sixth plot if one counts Glendower’s rising as a plot, and does not count the story about the barbed metal implement in his bed. The other four were the Epiphany Rising (1400), the poisoned saddle (1400), the friars’ conspiracy (1402) and the Percy revolt (1403).

  
6
. For the countess of Oxford’s plot, see Ross, ‘Seditious Activities’; Morgan, ‘Shadow of Richard II’, pp. 19–22; Wylie, i, pp. 417–28.

  
7
. Wylie, i, p. 437;
Syllabus,
p. 550. It is not clear if Hawley was mayor at this time (Hugh R. Watkin,
Dartmouth
(Devonshire Association, 1935), p. 184, has no names of mayors for 1402–4).

  
8
. Morgan, ‘Shadow of King Richard’, p. 21.

  
9
. Wylie, i, pp. 431–2.

10
. He was captured before 19 June 1404. See
PROME,
1404 January, appendix;
Adam Usk,
pp. 176–7.

11
.
EC,
p. 30.

12
.
Eulogium,
iii, p. 402.

13
. Kirby, p. 172.

14
. However, Kirby, p. 174, prefers the idea that it was called ‘unlearned’ because of the attack on Church property by ignorant men.

15
.
PC,
i, p. 233.

16
.
PROME,
1404 October, items 14–23.

17
. Pelham was a Lancastrian retainer. Thomas Neville, Lord Furnival, was the brother of the earl of Westmorland.

18
.
Annales,
p. 399.

19
. During his 1402 campaign in Wales, he had the boys temporarily transferred to
the custody of his trusted servant Hugh Waterton at Berkhamsted. See
ODNB,
under ‘Mortimer, Edmund (V)’.

20
. The date is uncertain. Walsingham and Otterburne both say the Friday after St Valentine – 20 February – but as Wylie says, this must be a week late (Wylie, ii, p. 41). Henry knew of the plot in the early morning of Sunday 15 February (
Signet Letters,
p. 191) and Lady Despenser had been arrested by 17 February (Wylie, ii, p. 43). It is therefore likely that the date was the Friday
before
St Valentine (13 February): a copyist’s error is probably to blame.

21
.
Signet Letters,
p. 191.

22
.
CP,
xii/2, p. 903.

23
.
Glyn Dŵr,
p. 167. With regard to Glendower’s faith in prophecy, it is interesting that he employed a ‘master of Brut’ at this time. See
ODNB,
under ‘Glyn Dŵr, Owain’.