The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's Self-Made King (83 page)

24
.
Brut,
i, pp. 75–76. This version postdates the fall of Edward II. The story is the same as in the earliest known version written down about 1312. See Taylor,
Political Prophecy,
pp. 163–4; Smallwood, ‘Prophecy of the Six Kings’, pp. 571–92.

25
.
Glyn Dŵr,
pp. 167–9. These boundaries too were based on Welsh prophetic writing, the Welsh Triads delineating the ‘Three Realms of Britain’.

26
. As shown by Glendower in renouncing the allegiance of the Welsh Church to Rome the following year (1406) and by Henry in countenancing the confiscation of the temporalities of the Church in October 1404 and executing various high-ranking clergymen in 1402, 1405 and 1408.

27
. For Dafydd Gam’s attempt to kill Glendower during his first parliament, see
Glyn Dŵr,
p. 226.

28
.
PC,
i, p. 249.

29
.
Glyn Dŵr,
p. 119;
PC,
pp. 250–51.

30
. Wylie, ii, p. 93.

31
. The fifteen knights are named by Walsingham. See
Annales,
pp. 400–401.

32
.
Syllabus,
ii, p. 553.

33
. The date of the battle of Usk is disputed. Adam Usk – a man born in Usk – records that it was fought on 12 March 1405, and he gives several correct details about the battle (
Adam Usk,
p. 213). Shortly after giving this news he refers to being robbed by Welshmen in whom he had placed his trust, so, although he was writing on the Continent, he was probably well informed. However, the end of his entry, in which he relates how Gruffydd died of plague in the Tower six years later, shows that Usk himself, or a later copyist, introduced other details into his manuscript. It is likely therefore that the date of 12 March (the feast of St Gregory) was inserted later, arising out of a confusion with the
eve
of St Gregory, when the prince defeated the Welsh at Grosmont. Walsingham gives the date of the battle of Usk as 5 May (
Annales,
p. 399), and this is altogether more likely, as
Glyn Dŵr,
pp. 226, 223, agrees.

34
. Walker, ‘Yorkshire Risings’, p. 161;
Annales,
p. 400.

35
.
PC,
p. 264.

36
. See Walker, ‘Yorkshire Risings’, for the rising as ‘a series of loosely connected and largely spontaneous risings … best treated as three separate, and perhaps sequential, episodes’.

37
.
PROME,
1406 March, part 2, item 2.

38
. Ormrod, ‘Rebellion of Archbishop Scrope’, Nottingham 2006.

39
. Walker, ‘Yorkshire Risings’, pp. 164–5.

40
. Walker, ‘Yorkshire Risings’, p. 172.

41
. Both Walsingham and the continuator of the
Eulogium
refer to Westmorland and the archbishop drinking together. See
Annales,
p. 406, and
Eulogium,
iii, p. 406.

42
.
EC,
p. 32, refers to the king sending a host to Westmorland.

43
.
Badby,
p. 123.

44
.
Eulogium,
iii, p. 407.

45
. When news of Lord Bardolph’s secret flight north was revealed, Gascoigne was one of the two members whom the council sent to enquire, specifically because Henry had ‘a special confidence in him’. See
PC,
i, p.

46
.
Badby,
p. 124.

16: Smooth Comforts False

  
1
. The various accounts are summarised in Wylie, ii, pp. 246–52 and analysed in more detail in McNiven, ‘Henry IV’s health’, pp. 747–59.

  
2
. McNiven, ‘Henry IV’s health’, p. 757. See also McNiven’s conclusion on p. 759. The investigation included an examination of his nasal passages, which would have disintegrated after eight years of leprosy.

  
3
.
PC,
i, p. 275.

  
4
.
PK,
p. 432.

  
5
. The only statement by the king himself regarding his disease is a letter to the council, which would not have been made public. See
Signet Letters,
pp. 125–6.

  
6
. The 1397 treatment of a plaster was purchased from the London grocer William Chichele. See Wylie, iv, p. 153.

  
7
.
Adam Usk,
p. 243.

  
8
. Wylie, iv, p. 153; Appendix Six.

  
9
. Rawcliffe,
Medicine and Society,
p. 47.

10
.
CPR 1399–1401,
p. 255. See Appendix Six.

11
. Biggs, ‘Politics of health’, p. 191;
idem,
‘An Ill and Infirm King’.

12
. The documents used for the comparison were C 81/1358 no. 4b and C 81/1362 no. 46.

13
. Wylie, ii, p. 267; iii, p. 112. Wylie’s reference to 10,000 lb. of copper being purchased for cannon in 1402 later ended up as ‘the king’s own great gun’ of 4.5 tons. There is no direct evidence for Henry having a gun of this weight. Even if he is right, a cannon of 4.5 tons would have been very difficult to transport from Nottingham to Aberystwyth via Hereford (as in Wylie, iv, p. 234). The two-ton cannon called ‘The Messenger’ is more likely to have been the largest then employed.

14
. Wylie, ii, p. 272.

15
. For the year 1405 there are no fewer than 302 signet letters extant, calendared in
Signet Letters,
pp. 62–115. This is by far the largest number for any single year (37 are extant for 1402, 82 for 1403, 42 for 1404, 165 for 1406, 24 for 1407, 14 for 1408, 19 for 1409, 12 for 1410 and 3 for 1412). Although the irregularities of creation (for which see Kirby, p. 210) and the vagaries of survival mean that this is a poor method of measuring actual work undertaken, it is worth noting that
in 1405 itself, 176 signet letters date from before 8 June 1405 and 146 are dated afterwards, indicating that Henry sustained a high level of business despite his illness.

16
. This took place at Lambeth on 26 December. Philippa was married in October 1406 at Lund. She never saw any of her family again.

17
. The essential reading for this is Biggs, ‘Politics of health’.

18
. According to Biggs, thirty-six of the seventy-four county members in the 1406 parliament were royal retainers, with a further nine being retainers of royalist lords (Biggs, ‘Politics of health’, pp. 203–4). According to Dodd, ‘Conflict or Consensus’, p. 123, the figure was twenty-eight retainers but a total of fifty-nine Lancastrian supporters. There were 167 borough members (
PROME,
1406 March, introduction). Thus even if all the county members were pro-Lancastrian they would still have been outnumbered by the borough representatives. Indeed, one explanation of why the majority of the county members were Lancastrian is that Henry ordered the sheriffs to choose sympathetic men to bolster his position against the rebellious borough representatives.

19
. To be specific: the 22 May arrangements, which can be connected with the king’s physical condition, cannot be connected with the commons, being the king’s own reaction to his illness; the 22 December arrangements (the Thirty-One Articles) cannot be connected to the king’s illness, given that his condition had improved and these articles were far harsher on the king than the earlier ones.

20
.
Signet Letters,
p. 124.

21
.
CPR 1405–8
, p. 170.

22
. Wylie, iv, p. 295.

23
.
Signet Letters,
p. 125.

24
.
Signet Letters,
pp. 125–6.

25
. This would imply that he led his army to Berwick after the Yorkshire Rising in this same state, and then campaigned in Wales in poor health.

26
. He stayed at the Tower, Lambeth, Eltham and Dowgate. The only places away from the river he stayed at between 11 November 1405 and the opening of parliament (1 March 1406) were Hertford Castle (11–17 December, 30 January–3 February, 21–26 February) and Waltham Abbey (29–30 January). See Wylie, iv, p. 295;
Signet Letters,
pp. 104–23.

27
.
PK,
p. 430. See also Appendix Six. I have been unable to identify a large cadre of physicians attending the king at this time. Biggs, ‘Politics of health’, p. 192, suggests he may have been attended by as many as five.

28
. Henry was at Westminster on Saturday 8 May (
PROME,
1406 March, item 29), Wednesday 12 May (C 53/175, no. 4), Friday 14, Saturday 15, Saturday 22 and Monday 14 May (
PROME,
1406 March, item 29, supported by C 53/175, no. 2), Wednesday 2 June (C 53/175, no. 3), Monday 7 June (
PROME,
1406 March, item 38), and Saturday 19 June (
PROME,
1406 March, item 41). The last day of this session was the day of the trial of Lord Bardolph and the earl of Northumberland.

29
.
PROME,
March 1406, item 31.

30
.
Eulogium,
iii, p. 409.

31
. See Appendix Five. It is possible that Henry travelled by carriage; however, evidence is lacking on this point.

32
. Biggs, ‘Politics of health’, p. 198; Kirby, p. 203. The abbot and the monks met the king at the lower gate of the monastery. He dropped to his knees and kissed their crucifix. Having been sprinkled with holy water, he was led into the church and up to the high altar, where he heard a short service, sang a hymn and listened to the abbot’s address. There he kissed the sacred relics. He spent the night in the abbot’s lodging, and rose early the next morning to attend two Masses in St Mary’s Chapel (it being a Sunday, 22 August). He processed with the choir around the cloister and went back to the abbot’s lodging for breakfast with his sons Thomas and Humphrey. Having dined with the abbot and the lords and knights in his party, he received two visitors: Philip Repingdon, his old confessor, now bishop of Lincoln, and Lord Willoughby, who had been with him on his crusade in Prussia. After their departure he spent the rest of the day reading in the abbey library.

33
. Bede,
A History of the English Church and People,
trans. Leo Sherley-Price (rev. ed., 1968), pp. 158–62.

34
.
PROME,
March 1406, introduction.

35
.
PC,
i, p. 295.

36
. This figure of £2,500 has been taken by some writers to represent the total expenses but the source – Kirby – states that it relates to the county members alone (Kirby, p. 206). The expense was about £34 per member for all three sessions (120 days), an average of 5s 8d per day. This is a little in excess of the 4s per day to which Walsingham states the knights and their deputies attending parliament in 1410 were entitled (
CM,
p. 379). In addition, there were 167 burgesses summoned in 1406, and they were also permitted to reclaim expenses. Had they done so in the same proportion as the county members, that would have added a further £5,462 to the bill, making a total in the region of £8,000, nearly a quarter of the £37,000 implicit in a grant of a tenth and a fifteenth. The forty-nine or so lords usually summoned were not entitled to reclaim expenses, and nor were the forty-seven parliamentary archbishops, bishops, abbots and priors.

37
. Kirby, p. 206;
Annales,
p. 418.

38
.
Brut,
ii, p. 367.

39
. Given-Wilson,
Royal Household,
p. 141.

40
. Wright, ‘Recovery of royal finance in 1407’, pp. 71–80.

41
.
Badby,
p. 144.

42
. Kirby, p. 210; Allmand, p. 42.

43
.
CCR 1405-9,
p. 261.

44
.
PROME,
1407 March, appendix, item 1.

45
.
CPR 1405–9,
pp. 361–2.

46
. Biggs, ‘An Ill and Infirm King’.

47
. See Appendix Five.

48
. Wylie, iv, pp. 296–7. His route via Worksop (
Signet Letters,
p. 146) shows that on this occasion he did not sail up the River Trent to Nottingham.

49
. 1 Peter, chapter ii, verse 17.

50
.
PROME,
1407 October, item 5.

51
. Kirby, p. 215, claims Henry was in Gloucester on 20 October; however, the parliament roll states that when parliament assembled on 24 October, having been
adjourned on the 20th, the chancellor spoke ‘in the presence of the lords spiritual and temporal’, and not ‘in the presence of the king and the lords and commons’. The king is not mentioned as being present until the presentation of the Speaker the following day.

52
. A radically alternative view is put forward by Douglas Biggs in ‘An Ill and Infirm King’, specifically that in terms of the political management of the commons ‘Arundel’s machinations must be counted a complete failure’. Biggs bases this judgement on an assumption that Arundel’s ploy to have a committee of powerful lords speak to the commons proved a failure, and that the storm of protest which greeted his use of the lords to set the level of taxation was ‘the greatest concession to any house of commons before the Civil War’. I would counter that, with regard to the first of these, the lords’ committee was not a ploy of Arundel’s but a direct result of a request from the commons (
PROME,
1407 October, item 18). Nor is there any evidence that it proved a failure; in fact it seems to have been successful, for no detrimental repercussions resulting from this meeting are recorded on the parliament roll. With regard to the second point, the storm of protest was not sufficient to inhibit the granting of the substantial tax and wool subsidy, or even to delay the grant. Indeed, the fact that it took Arundel just eleven working days (from Monday 21 November to Friday 2 December) to persuade the commons to grant a tax significantly larger than that granted in the Long Parliament, which took more than 120 days of parliamentary time, has to be counted extremely efficient political management, especially considering that many members of the Long Parliament were also present at Gloucester. In lifting the restrictions on the king and the council, and securing a large grant so rapidly in the face of the commons’ opposition, Arundel has to be counted wholly successful. As for the concession to the commons of their right in future to discuss the affairs of the realm without the king being present, it is arguable that this merely confirmed what was already the practice, and had been since 1399 if not 1376.