Editor’s note: The following is excerpted from Memoirs of Great Commanders, by G.P.R. James (published 1839).
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Henry, the fifth English monarch of that name, was born at Monmouth, on the banks of the pleasant Wye, in the year 1384-5. He was the eldest son of Henry earl of Derby, and of Mary de Bohun, daughter of the earl of Hereford. During his infancy reverses and successes passed rapidly over his father’s head; at the age of thirteen years he found himself the eldest son of the king of England, and was created by his father prince of Wales, duke of Cornwall, and earl of Chester. What the early education of Henry V was, we are unable to ascertain, but it may be inferred that, during the life of his mother, principles of honour and virtue had been instilled into his bosom, which, though rendered dormant for a time, were not extinct. But, as he advanced towards manhood, his position drew around him evil companions, who, to answer their own interested purposes, encouraged the indulgence of passions engendered by idleness and high animal spirits.
The tales of his debauchery, and the depravity of his taste, while a youth, have been doubted and contradicted, but not disproved by modern historians. The positive assertions of older writers, whose means of information were great and immediate, must always be considered more trustworthy than the theoretical doubts of persons who lived when a thousand sources of knowledge have been buried under the lumber of ages. Even supposing the accounts of Henry’s wildness to be highly coloured, as traditions generally are, still traditions have always some truth as a foundation, and there is little more reason to doubt the excesses of Prince Hal than the eulogiums of the precocious virtues and talents that are handed down to us of other princes. His short reign proved him to be a man of clear sense and strong will; and as, even in the midst of his follies, scintillations of superior feelings and purposes were occasionally apparent, we think we must accept them as the wild shoots of a vigorous plant which the hand of time had not trained or pruned.
Out of a multitude of events which might be brought forward to prove this fact, one of the best authenticated, and the most striking, is his submission to Chief Justice Gascoign.
Henry, it would appear, had entered the court of justice in support of one of his dissolute companions, who had rendered himself amenable to the laws of his country. Notwithstanding the presence and influence of the prince, the magistrate did his duty towards the offender, without fear or favour, and in the heat of the moment Henry struck the judge upon the judgment-seat. Still unmoved and unruffled, the chief justice, without a hesitation on the score of the prince’s rank or power, at once committed him for contempt of court.
Time had been given for the better spirit to assume its influence, and struck with the conscientious courage of the judge, the heir-apparent of the throne submitted to the punishment he had merited, and suffered himself without opposition to be led to prison, thus setting a noble example of obedience to the laws. His father was of a mind well qualified to appreciate the conduct both of his son and of his son’s judge, and when the news was brought him—probably by those who sought to inflame the monarch’s mind against the punisher of his son—he exclaimed with joy: “Blessed is the king whose magistrates possess courage to execute the laws upon such an offender; and still more happy is he who has for a son, a prince willing to endure such wholesome chastisement.”
Although, from all accounts, it would appear that many parts of the prince’s conduct gave great pain and offence to his father, yet we find that Henry IV never scrupled to entrust to his care some of the greatest and most important military operations of his reign. Whether the prince had already displayed the qualities of a soldier, in a degree sufficient to attract the notice of his father, or whether the king sought only to habituate him early to that inevitable career of arms which was in those days one of the misfortunes of royalty, we are not informed; but so early as his sixteenth or seventeenth year he fought at the battle of Shrewsbury, in which Henry Hotspur was slain. What was the part assigned to the prince on this occasion I do not find stated precisely; but all accounts agree that he proved of infinite assistance and service to his father both by action and example, and fought for a long time in the thickest of the battle, after being severely wounded by an arrow in the face.
The death of Percy spread dismay amongst his soldiers and allies, and after a fight of nearly four hours the party of Northumberland fled, leaving the king master of the field of battle, and a number of noble prisoners. Many of these were executed, either at Shrewsbury or London; and the earl of Northumberland, the chief support of the rebellion, made his peace for the time, to meditate fresh rebellions.
Owen Glendower, however, one of the confederates, was still in arms in Wales; and while Henry IV returned in triumph to London, he despatched his eldest son, at the head of considerable forces, to reduce the principality to obedience. The unhappy Glendower, unable to oppose the army led against him, was forced to fly, and, abandoned by his friends and followers, is said to have died of starvation, among the caves and wildernesses in which he sought refuge. In the meanwhile the prince of Wales conducted his expedition with skill and wisdom; the whole country submitted to his power; and having re-established order and tranquillity, he joined his father in London to receive public honour and paternal praise.
Although the earl of Northumberland had made submission, and had been permitted by the king to remain unmolested in his estates and dignities, but a short time elapsed before he was again deep in conspiracy against the monarch. The plot, however, was detected before it was ripe. The principal conspirators were arrested and beheaded, and the earl of Northumberland himself fled into Scotland, which had promised him aid and support, and thence into France, in search of more efficient succour. The king meanwhile took possession of all Northumberland, and while he made himself master of the strong places which had been garrisoned by the troops of the earl, he sent the prince of Wales forward into Scotland, upon one of those cruel expeditions which disgrace the records of the borders. Massacre, ruin, and destruction were the end and object, and no ultimate advantage was pretended or obtained by any party. The weak, mild, and unhappy Robert king of Scotland was then struggling through the latter years of his life; and his country, desolated by factions and weakened by intestine strife, was in no state to offer effectual opposition to the English invasion. After a long march through the country, in which an immense quantity of property was destroyed and plundered, the prince of Wales concluded a truce of some months with the border chiefs, and returned with all the honour his expedition deserved.
Little more occurs in the history of Henry as prince of Wales which is in itself interesting, if stripped of the embellishments added to it by the fancy of our great poet. A project of marriage between the heir of the English crown and a daughter of the duke of Burgundy was entertained for some time, but died away, and the opposite, or Orleans, party in France, was afterwards supported by the English crown. At length, Henry IV, on the eve of an expedition to the Holy Land, undertaken, it is said, in expiation of his usurpation of the throne, was struck with apoplexy; and a tale, in regard to his death, is current amongst the historians of the period, on which Shakespeare has founded one of the most beautiful scenes in his historical dramas. The poet, however, is far more indebted for the splendour of his materials to his own imagination, than to any historical record. The facts, as related by the best authorities, are simply as follow.
After the first attack of apoplexy the king was carried to a chamber in the house of the abbot of Westminster, and put to bed, and at his own desire the crown was laid upon his pillow. He languished in a state of great weakness for some time, and at length, after a second attack, appeared to those who were watching him to have yielded the spirit. The chamberlain immediately spread a linen cloth over the face of the king, and hastened to communicate his supposed death to the heir-apparent, who, entering the room to take a last look at his father’s body, removed the crown from his pillow, and carried it into another apartment. After a short time the monarch revived, and sending for his son, demanded, angrily, why he had removed the crown. The prince replied, that all men had thought him dead, and therefore he had taken the symbol of royalty as his by right.
“What right I have to it myself, God knows,” replied the king, “and how I have enjoyed it.”
“Of that,” replied the prince,”it is not for me to judge; but if you die king, my father, I will have the garland, and will defend it with my sword against all enemies, as you have done.”
Not long after this conversation Henry IV expired, and his son, the prince of Wales, was immediately proclaimed king, by the title of Henry V. But his change was not alone in name or station; his vices and his follies he cast from him, as an unworthy garment, and assumed with royalty a royal mind. The debauched companions of his youth were banished from his presence and his counsels, and forbidden to approach within ten miles of his dwelling. But at the same time we are assured that they were not left in indigence or necessity. Wisdom and virtue became the only recommendations which raised any one to his service; and those who had proved themselves most worthy, under the government of the former monarch, found themselves most readily welcomed by the new king.
It is not, of course, my purpose here to trace the life of Henry V in the civil government of his realm, but nevertheless one of his first actions after coming to the throne deserves some notice, as exemplifying the character of him whose life as a commander I am about to sketch. The body of the unhappy King Richard II had remained unhonoured at Langly during the period which had elapsed between his death and that of him who had deposed him; but although there were still living many claimants to the crown of England whose right was unquestionably better than his own, Henry V had the boldness or the magnanimity to remove the dust of the murdered monarch to Westminster, and solemnly mingle it with that of former kings. He knew that there is but one title by which a king can hold his throne against internal enemies—the consent of his people; and but one means by which he can guard it against external foes—the sword; and he felt himself qualified to rely on both.
It is said that the first warlike expedition of the young king was prompted by the archbishop of Canterbury, on those motives which Protestant writers are somewhat too fond of attributing to Roman Catholic prelates. We are told that, at the Parliament of Leicester, the Commons demanded that a bill should be reconsidered and passed, which had been brought in during a former session for appropriating the lands and moneys bestowed by devotees upon the church, to the more popular purpose (as it was at that time) of providing a standing army. To turn the mind of the king from this subject, the archbishop is supposed to have revived the antiquated claims of the English monarchs, not only to the great portion of the French territory which had been actually held by former English sovereigns, but to the crown of France itself; and to have filled the mind of a young and warlike prince with the desires of military glory and territorial aggrandizement.
It is far more likely, however, that such desires were already germinating in the heart of the young king, and that the political necessity of giving active employment abroad to the factious and turbulent nobility, which formed the military strength of that day, supported the natural wishes of an ambitious prince. No moment could have been more favourable for prosecuting such claims upon the throne of France than the period of Henry’s accession. The unhappy monarch Charles VI, in a state of mental imbecility, was but a tool in the hands of others. His infamous queen, Isabella of Bavaria, laboured to divide and ruin her husband’s kingdom, rather than to tranquillize and consolidate it. The Burgundian and Armagnac factions committed every excess unpunished, and desolated their native land with continual strife; while the Dauphin, plunged in pleasures and debaucheries, an object of anger to some and contempt to others, abandoned to its fate a country he had not energy to govern.
Henry appears early to have conceived the design of taking advantage of this state of disorganization, and of adding another crown to that which his father had usurped. His first step was to send as ambassadors to the court of France, the earl of Dorset, Richard Lord Grey, and the bishops of Durham and Norwich, to require in marriage the daughter of the French king; but together with this pacific proposal was coupled the extraordinary demand of the duchies of Acquitaine and Normandy, with the counties of Ponthieu, Maine, and Anjou. The ambas sadors were received by the French monarch during one of the intervals of his malady, and were splendidly entertained in Paris; but after a short time returned without a satisfactory answer, the French monarch declaring that he would send his own envoys to treat with the king of England.
Henry did not pause for their arrival, but immediately began to concentrate all the forces he could collect at Southampton, and sent two men of the name of Clitherow and Fleet to Holland, for the purpose of obtaining the necessary shipping to transport his large army to the invasion of France. The news of these preparations hastened the journey of the French ambassadors, and various negotiations took place, which, of course, when one party was determined upon war, did not terminate in peace.
Some authors have asserted that on the first extravagant demands of the English king, the Dauphin, unaware of the change that had taken place in his character since his accession to the throne, sent him over a ton of tennis balls in contempt; to which Henry replied, that he would soon return the present with balls which the gates of Paris would prove too weak as rackets to send back.
This tale is apparently fabulous; for neither do we find it confirmed by the best historians, nor is it rendered more probable by the character of the Dauphin; who was far too debauched himself to presume to sneer at the debaucheries of another prince. No sooner was the truce at an end which then existed between France and England, than Henry himself proceeded to Southampton to take the command of his army in person. The very night previous to the appointed day of embarkation, however, the monarch discovered a conspiracy amongst his most familiar followers, which caused a temporary delay.
The earl of Cambridge, Henry Lord Scroop, and Sir Thomas Gray were accused of combining to take the king’s life, and on being arrested confessed their treason. In regard to the motives which could induce three men of high rank and unblemished character, to undertake the commission of so base a crime against a monarch who loved and trusted them, there seem to be many doubts. A bribe from France, which has been stated as the cause, seems to be totally inadequate to the effect; and it is much more probable that the purpose of elevating to the throne the earl of March, the true and direct heir of the unhappy Richard II, was that which the conspirators had in view, as stated by the best French historians. To the earl of March himself, however, Henry was invariable in his kindness, and even when the conspirators were executed, the confidence of the king in his less happy cousin does not seem to have been at all shaken.
As soon as justice was done upon the traitors, the English armament put to sea, and notwithstanding great preparations which had been made for defending the French coast, Henry landed his troops in safety at the mouth of the Seine and immediately laid siege to Harfleur, at that time the principal sea-port of Normandy. His forces are said by Monstrelet to have consisted at this period of six thousand men-at-arms, or such as wore helmets, and twenty-four thousand archers, besides a large and well appointed train of artillery, which was now rapidly coming into use in sieges.
The operations against Harfleur detained the English monarch for some time, the walls being strong and thick, protected by a deep ditch, and flanked by many towers of considerable size: and during the space thus employed, great efforts were made on the part of the French to repel the invasion of their island enemies.
The Dauphin himself advanced to Vernon on the Seine, and the famous Marshal Boucicault, one of the most celebrated knights of his time, gathered together a large force, and advanced towards the English army. Still it was not judged prudent to attack King Henry in his camp; and Boucicault confined his efforts to cutting off the supplies of the British forces. This proved the more detrimental, as a great part of the provisions brought from England had been spoiled by the sea air, and a severe species of dysentery began to manifest itself in the camp, of which more than two thousand men perished in a few days.
Nevertheless, Henry did not suffer his courage to fail, and the siege was continued with unabated vigour. At length the means of defence began to diminish fast within the town. Two waggons of powder, which the French attempted to introduce, fell into the hands of the English; the walls were ruined by the effects of the artillery, and at length the governor agreed to surrender, if he should not be relieved within three days. The three days expired without succour, and Harfleur was surrendered to the king of England.
This first conquest had already cost the English monarch dear; not so much by the efforts of his enemies as by the pestilence which afflicted his army, and which had already spread to nearly one-half of his troops. He seems, therefore, to have entertained the idea of contenting himself, for the time, with what he had already acquired; and, after repairing the fortifications of Harfleur, and supplying it with a strong garrison and abundant provisions, he sent back a considerable part of his army, under the command of the duke of Clarence, and with the rest, who were in a more healthy condition, he proceeded to march for Calais.
His forces now amounted only to two thousand men-at-arms and thirteen thousand archers; and by proclamations and manifestoes of every kind that could stir up the spirit of a warlike people, the Dauphin and the French council were striving to raise a sufficient body of forces to cut off the English army on its march. Nor were their efforts unseconded by the nobility of the country. The duke of Orleans and the Armagnac faction made every exertion in defence of their native land; and though the duke of Burgundy, who was by this time in treaty with the English monarch, neglected to send his contingent, and impeded his subjects, as far as possible, in their attempts to join the defenders of France, the gallant nobility of Burgundy were not to be restrained, and every day flocked to the standard of the Constable D’Albre and the Marshal Boucicault.
Tidings of gathering hosts did not fail to reach the small and weakened English army, and Henry with all speed approached the river Somme, and attempted the passage at the ford of Blanchetache, where his great-grandfather, King Edward, had passed prior to the battle of Crecy. The ford, however, was already defended by so strong a force, that Henry was obliged to relinquish his design; and, ascending the banks of the river, he endeavoured to find some other spot where the same precautions had not been taken by the enemy. At every passage, however, he found them prepared to receive him; the bridges were burned, the fords were guarded or destroyed, and at Abbeville the constable and Boucicault had already assembled a force infinitely superior to his own. Marching onward, however, with a bold aspect, the English monarch still ascended the course of the river, while the French army, on the other side, followed him step by step. On more than one occasion Henry paused on his march, in the best position he could find, and seemed to await the attack of the enemy; but no rencontre of any consequence took place between the English and the French armies, though at Corbie the armed peasantry, headed by some men-at-arms of that town, engaged the English advanced guard, and were driven with great slaughter to the gates. By this time the principal force of the French had advanced as far as Peronne; and between Corbie and that place the English discovered a ford, which had either been neglected or was unknown, over which the army passed the river unopposed.
While these operations were taking place in the field, the council of the king of France were deliberating upon the question, whether it would be expedient to attack the retreating army of England, and risk a general battle, or still to hang upon its rear, and endeavour to destroy it piecemeal in its march towards Calais. The bolder measure was adopted by a large majority of the council; and it was published throughout France, that all noble and valiant men who sought to acquire glory in the field of battle should repair immediately to the Constable D’Albre, who proposed to give battle to the English invaders with all speed. Such a summons called immense multitudes into the field; and the hourly increase of the French army threatened but to render the destruction of the English too easy an achievement to redound greatly to the honour of the French knights.
From Mouchy, where the king of England had first paused after the passage of the river, he proceeded to a small town called Maisoncelles, while the French commanders hastened to endeavour to cut off his retreat, and took up their position at Roussauville and Agincourt. The. certainty of the most brilliant success animated the hearts of the French, while all that the English could derive from their situation was the courage of despair. About one hundred thousand regular troops, besides a number of irregular partizans, were opposed to the English army, which, when it set out from Harfleur, consisted but of fifteen thousand men, and which, in passing through an enemy’s country, had of course found no means of recruiting its forces; while it is but fair to suppose that many men had been lost by weariness, disease, and occasional encounters with the enemy.
Thus the two armies passed the night of Thursday, the 24th of October, 1415, within about three bow-shots of each other, lodging principally in the open field. The French spent the time at great fires, surrounding their various banners with much merriment and rejoicing; and, as usual on the eve of a great battle, a number of gentlemen received the honour of knighthood, to prepare them for the following day. The English army generally received the sacrament, and afterwards, it is reported, cheered themselves with the sounds of their musical instruments during the greater part of the night. One of the French historians also relates, as an extraordinary fact, that, notwithstanding the excellent appointments and warlike provision of the French army, there were few, if any, instruments of music to be found in their host; and he adds that, during that night, it was remarked the horses of the French army did not even break the silence as usual by their neighings.
Early in the morning, the dispositions for battle were made in both hosts. The French were divided into three large bodies, forming the van, the main, and the rear guard, each having its own centre and wings; but it was determined, at the same time, to await the approach of the English, who must necessarily pass them in the attempt to reach Calais.
Finding that the attack was not made by the enemy, as he had expected would be the case, Henry, after having refreshed his soldiers, marched forward to the unequal contest, throwing forward a body of about two hundred archers, who concealed themselves in a meadow not far from the vanguard of the French, behind a ditch which defended them from the charge of cavalry. The rest of the army was speedily arranged, the archers being placed in front, and furnished with pointed stakes, which, planted in the ground and shod with iron, formed a rampart against the enemy’s men-at-arms. The horse supported the foot, and in the wings, we are told by Monstrelet, were mingled archers and cavalry.
The English force now advanced rapidly to the attack of the French army, keeping perfect order, and a bold and determined front, while their adversaries also placed themselves in array, and prepared to win the victory, of which they entertained no doubt. King Henry was now on foot, in the front of his forces, and an oration is attributed to him, which, as it was fabricated, beyond all doubt, long after his death, I shall not here repeat. Sir Thomas of Erpingham, an old and experienced knight, advanced before the rest, and when the whole army had arrived within bowshot of the enemy, he threw up his warder in the air, which was followed by that tremendous cheer that has in all ages preceded the onset of the British.
The English archers wore no defensive armour in the field of Agincourt, and the steel-clad thousands of the French beheld with contempt the handful of half-naked bowmen that advanced against them, few with even a coat upon their shoulders, many bareheaded, and almost all of them with nothing to defend them but their bow, their sword, or axe. But when they drew their cloth-yard shafts to the head, and the whistling messengers of death flew thick amongst the Gallic horse, the boldest knights were glad to bend their heads to their saddle-bows, to defend their faces from the searching arrows of the English.
The casting up of the warder in the air, and shouts of the advancing army, had been the signal for the concealed archers to open their discharge upon the flank of the French cavalry, and so fatally true were their arrows, that in a moment a body of eight hundred men-at-arms, who had been thrown forward to break the line of the English foot, were themselves cast into terrible confusion, and their horses becoming unmanageable from the galling wounds they received, only a hundred and forty reached the English lines. The rest, driven back in disorder, rushed in amongst the vanguard of their own army, carrying with them fear and disarray; while still the tremendous flight of cloth-yard shafts falling thick among the French, put the whole of the first division of the enemy to flight.
At that moment, abandoning their bows, and betaking themselves to their swords, their axes, and their bills, the English archers advanced rapidly to take advantage of the disorder of the enemy. The king, at the head of his men-at-arms, supported them powerfully, and advancing onward with steady determination, the way was cleared to the main body of the French, who found themselves assailed and broken almost before they knew that those who preceded them were defeated. The rearguard of the adverse army, still nearly double in number to the victorious English, fled in a body, with the exception of some of the more renowned leaders, who remained to strike one stroke still for the honour of France. But at this part of the engagement, the news was brought to Henry that a body of the French were in his rear, and plundering the baggage of his army. The field was still full of the enemy, a moment’s pause would have been sufficient to renew their courage; and imagining that a separate division, instead of a few plunderers, which was really the case, were hanging upon his rear, the king issued an order for every man to dispatch his prisoners. This was instantly executed, and a terrible slaughter was the consequence; but the motive for this bloody act was universally known, and, contrary to the custom of adverse nations, was not made the subject of animadversion even by his enemies.
The last effort on the part of the French to turn the fortune of the day was made by the counts of Marle and Faquembergue, who with six hundred men-at-arms cast themselves into the English lines when the battle was absolutely lost, and were all either slain or made prisoners. The rest of the army fled in every direction, and the remnant of fifteen thousand men which Henry had led to the field remained upon the plain of Agincourt, the conquerors of nearly ten times their number.
The king of England, when the battle was completely won, and the field clear, rode round the spot over which such a terrible day had passed, and calling to him the herald of the French monarch—who either came up after the battle, or in his sacred character had remained behind—he demanded of him to whom, according to his own confession, the victory belonged—to him, or to the king of France? Those who read the history of many battles will see that the question was not a needless one, even on such a field as Agincourt; and to the heralds of that day belonged the decision of all doubtful points in matters of arms. Mountjoie, king-at-arms, instantly replied that the victory was to be attributed, not to the king of France, but the king of England; and Agincourt remains one of the few fields which have been claimed only by the party that won them.
The loss on the two adverse sides was very differently apportioned; that of the English amounting to only sixteen hundred of every grade, whilst the French lost upwards of ten thousand men, of whom more than eight thousand were of noble birth, and from a hundred to a hundred and twenty, whose rank entitled them to display their own banners in the field. Three thousand knights also, we are informed by the journal of a Parisian burgher, fell among the French, and the number of prisoners that remained, even after the slaughter of those first captured, was immense.
The fight lasted till near four o’clock in the afternoon; and the weary army of England retired to the same village in which it had passed the preceding night, and spent the evening in thanksgiving and rejoicing. Henry, however, did not attempt, with the small forces which he could still command, to pursue his victory any farther; but, after refreshing his men, followed the course in which the French army had endeavoured to stop him, and marched unopposed to Calais, whence he took ship, and proceeded by Dover to London.
Shortly after his return to England, Henry was visited by Sigismund emperor of Germany, accompanied by French ambassadors commissioned to treat for peace under his mediation. But while Henry continued to exact severe terms, the French gave him constant excuses for proceeding in the war, by their efforts to recover Harfleur, which, however, were constantly defeated by the activity of the English monarch and his commanders.
In the meanwhile the Armagnac faction continued to rule at the French court; and the duke of Burgundy, in open opposition to the Dauphin and his friends, made no scruple of ravaging the territories of his liege lord, or of negotiating openly with the enemies of his country. Nor did the death of the young duke of Acquitaine, at that time Dauphin, in any degree change the aspect of France; for his brother Charles—who succeeded, after the death of another brother—though of a more active disposition and more vigorous frame, was equally unable to repress the factions of the nobles, and equally an object of hatred to the house of Burgundy. That which put the final stroke to the ruin and divisions of France, however, was the infamous dereliction of every principle by the Queen Isabella of Bavaria. Her private vices had long been a scandal to the court, and at length becoming too glaring to be passed over even by her own son, she was removed from Paris to Tours, and there detained in close confinement. It is not, of course, my purpose to trace all the struggles that ensued between the two factions of France: and it may suffice to say that the queen, making her situation known to the duke of Burgundy, was liberated by him, and by her influence. obtained for her new ally the greater part of the large cities of France, including the capital. An active war immediately ensued between the duke and the Dauphin; and about this period Henry king of England once more took the seas with a large army, and landed at a place called Toucque, in Normandy.
To conquer the former patrimony of the British kings seemed the monarch’s first object, and in a very short time he made himself master of almost all the principal cities of the duchy. Caen, indeed, resisted with devoted courage, and, after a severe siege, was taken by assault; but the governors of the other fortified places in Normandy, divided between the Armagnac and Burgundian parties, had no confidence in their soldiers or each other, and one after another submitted to the power of the conqueror. Nor, indeed, did Henry spare any means to obtain his purpose in such a bloodless manner. All his proclamations announced that those who submitted should be safe in person and property; and his address to all the French people holds out to them that prospect of peace and protection which had long been unknown amongst the dissensions of their nobles. The first person of great influence, however, who joined the forces of the English king, was the duke of Britanny; and, though Henry required no very great exertions from his new ally, the example of such a defection from the crown of France was greatly in behalf of the invader. Rouen, the capital of Normandy, however, still resolutely closed her gates against the English.
The attack and capture of the Pont de l’Arche announced to the people of Rouen, and to the king of France, that the war was about to approach the gates of the Norman capital, and every exertion was made, both by the Burgundian faction, who now held the king in their hands, and the burghers of the city itself, to repel the English in the attempt. A number of famous knights and commanders threw themselves into the city, which was, besides, garrisoned by upwards of four thousand men-at-arms, and fifteen thousand armed citizens, all eager in the cause. Not a moment was lost in providing the place with everything necessary to sustain the people during a long siege; and, while the citizens laboured day and night to repair the walls, the gates, and the towers, proclamation was made throughout the town, that every one willing to remain within the walls was to lay in provisions for ten months, and that those who were not able to do so were immediately to quit the city.
A number of the poor, the women and the children, took advantage of this warning, and abandoned the place; but, unfortunately, many who should have done so likewise, remained till the English troops appeared before the town, and escape became impossible. It was in the month of June, before the new corn was ready for the sickle, that Henry laid siege to Rouen, and his preparation at once showed his determination not to abandon the attempt under any circumstances. In the midst of the efforts of the besieged to impede his progress, he stretched his camp around the city, and defended his troops with strong lines, while to cut off the possibility of supplies being thrown into the town by water, he drew two lines of strong chains across the Seine, above and below the spot where Rouen rests upon the river.
Immense efforts were now made by the English to force an entrance, but the defences of the place were so strong, and the defenders so resolute, that no hope appeared of effecting a practicable breach in the walls. Many a sally took place, and many an assault, and many a feat of arms was performed between the two armies. But in the mean time the provisions of the people of the town began to decrease, and a smaller and smaller portion of food became the allowance of each day. Reports were spread by the French without, to encourage the besieged and dismay the English, that the king and the duke of Burgundy, with an immense force, were marching to raise the siege, or to throw provisions into the city; but the king was in a state of imbecility, and the duke of Burgundy was too eagerly pursuing his hatred towards the Dauphin to bring effectual succour to Rouen. No relief appeared; and, as the winter began to approach, the scarcity within the walls grew more and more terrible. The ordinary food of man failed altogether. Bad water, with a few drops of vinegar to purify it, became the drink of the highest classes. Horseflesh was a dainty only to be procured by the rich. Dogs, rats, and mice were sold at exorbitant prices; and still gaunt famine made rapid progress. All the resources that despair could devise were exhausted one after the other, and it began to be a common tale each morning that two or three had died of hunger in the night. Horror followed upon horror. Infants were seen hanging on the cold breasts of dead mothers in the street, and striving to draw the wonted nourishment from the inanimate clay. The soldiers, whose provision had been more carefully hoarded, at length drove out beyond the walls the starving wretches whom they could not support, while the English soldiers hunted them back to the gates, in order that they might sooner induce the city to capitulate. The gates, however, were closed upon them; and several hundreds of these miserable beings were suffered to lie out in the cold of the December nights between the besieged city and the English trenches. Henry, however, more than once took compassion on them and sent them food, but, adhering to the cruel policy of war, would not suffer them to pass his camp. At length the inhabitants, by murmurs and threats, compelled the garrison to treat; and, after a long and painful negotiation, Rouen capitulated, upon terms which could hardly be called unfavourable, in the situation to which its defenders were reduced.
The news of the fall of Rouen had great effect on the rest of Normandy, and twenty-seven towns, or castles, immediately made submission to the king of England, without even being summoned to surrender. Nor was this immediate benefit the only advantage which followed the capture of Rouen. Dismay and doubt pervaded all France, and thoughts of peace and concession were entertained by those who had hitherto breathed nothing but war and defiance to the king of England. Henry, on his part, still demanded the hand of the beautiful Catherine of France; and a meeting was agreed upon between the English monarch and his brothers, on the one part, and the queen, the princess, and the duke of Burgundy, on the other.
The interview was delayed till the middle of April; but it then took place with great splendour, in an inclosed field, near Meulan. The news of these events reached the Dauphin, and with them brought the certainty of his own ruin, should the proposed union between the Burgundian faction and the English invaders be carried into effect. In consequence, his first step was to offer peace and amity to the duke of Burgundy; not, in all probability, that he forgot or forgave the past offences of that proud prince, but because he knew that matters of difference must arise between the English and French crowns, which, if the duke of Burgundy were confident of treating with himself, would probably break off the negotiations, by the refusal of King Henry’s demands.
At all events such was the case. The duke, confident of alliance with the prince, would not yield to the high demands of the English monarch, and the meeting terminated unsatisfactorily, though with much courtesy on all parts. The war was instantly renewed by the English; and while the Dauphin and the Burgundian leader met and concluded a hollow and heartless peace, Henry, seeing that nothing but activity could accomplish his object against the new combination which was formed to oppose him, hurried rapidly on upon the path of conquest he had opened for himself. Poutoise was almost immediately taken by surprise, Gisors and Château Gaillard fell after a short siege, and the terrific news of the advance of the English reached Paris, and induced the king, the queen, and the duke of Burgundy to abandon the capital and retire to Troyes.
At this crisis a meeting was proposed between the duke of Burgundy and the Dauphin, to consider the final arrangement of all their differences, and the means to be taken against the common enemy. Had good faith or common honesty been observed, a league might have been formed which would have soon expelled the English from the soil of France; but one of the most nefarious pieces of treachery that was ever practised resulted from the confidence which the Burgundian prince placed in the son of his king; and the consequence was temporary ruin to the kingdom, and a long cause of misery to the prince who committed the deed. After some doubts and persuasions, the duke of Burgundy presented himself at Montereau, and met the Dauphin on the bridge which had been appointed for the place of interview; but at the moment he was kneeling to do honour to the son of the monarch, he was killed by some of the officers of the prince with battle-axes.
The parties of the Burgundians and the Armagnacs were instantly revived. Philip, count of Charrolois, the only son of the dead duke, in assuming the honours of his father, inherited a greater share of hatred against the Dauphin than ever that father had displayed; and the first effect of his revenge was the fatal measure of immediate treaty with the English king. During the time spent in negotiation, Henry found that the vengeance sworn by the duke of Burgundy towards the Dauphin, and the hatred borne towards her son by the unnatural queen of France, would easily, if properly turned to advantage, lead him to the object of his ambition. His ambassadors, according to the desire of the French court, were instantly sent to Troyes, where the weak king remained under the guidance of his evil wife and her counsellors; and they soon sketched out a treaty by which, on marrying the Princess Catherine, the English monarch should be declared heir to the crown of France, to the exclusion of the Dauphin and his lineage. This hasty treaty was as hastily ratified; and Henry, with fifteen thousand men, departed from Rouen, and, marching with all speed to Troyes, put the seal to an arrangement which conveyed to him the throne for which he had fought, by marrying the daughter of the French monarch. To the first articles proposed was now added, at the request of Henry, that the regency of the kingdom, to the government of which Charles was totally incompetent, should be entrusted to him; and no sooner was the solemnity of his marriage completed, than he took the field against the Dauphin, leading the unhappy king of France and his whole court against the natural heir to the throne. The town of Sens first fell before the arms of England and Burgundy; and immediately after siege was laid to Montereau, where the assassination of John the Bold[1] had been committed.
After a brief siege the town itself was taken by assault; but the garrison, retreating into the castle, declared they would defend themselves to the last. The obstinacy of their resistance irritated the English monarch, and hurried him into a piece of cruelty which must not be passed over in silence. A number of prisoners had been taken in the assault of the town, and their lives had certainly been spared at a moment when no quarter was generally given; but Henry ought to have felt that the only excuse for the cruelties of a storm is the excessive excitement of the soldiery, and that the lives of prisoners made at such a moment should be as secure, when the first violence of angry passions has passed away, as those taken under any other circumstances. From those, however, which had now fallen into his hands, he selected twelve, and, threatening them with death if they did not succeed, sent them to the governor to urge the surrender of the citadel. Their prayers were rejected, the castle still held out, and Henry cruelly ordered his unfortunate missives to be hanged within sight of the gate. Not long after the citadel surrendered, and the English monarch proceeded to the siege of Melun-on-the-Seine, which was at that time strongly fortified, and garrisoned by some of the best troops of the Dauphin’s party.
Its resistance was proportioned to its strength, and for eighteen weeks it set the united army of England and Burgundy at defiance. No means, however, were left unemployed by the besiegers to gain the walls; and though the general course of events was as uninteresting as the events of a siege generally are, it may be noticed, as a curious trait of the warfare of that day, that, in one of the mines which had been counter-mined by the besieged, the king of England and the duke of Burgundy came to close combat with two of the Dauphin’s partizans. At length the want of provisions forced the town to surrender, and articles of capitulation were agreed to, by which the garrison were to be treated as prisoners of war, excepting such as were bonâ fide subjects of the king of England, and such as had been accessory to the murder of the duke of Burgundy. These were reserved for punishment; and, after the surrender of the town, the monarchs and their courts proceeded to Paris, where they were received with joy and acclamations. Feasts and splendour, songs and rejoicings, resounded through the capital; the halls smoked with banquets, and the conduits ran with wine; but it was remarked with a sigh, by the more loyal men of France, that their native king sat in solitude and neglect in his palace, while the multitude ran to gaze and shout at the magnificence of the stranger.
Henry also now took upon him the whole executive power of the government. The governors of towns, the officers of state, the magistrates, and the dignitaries, were placed and displaced at his pleasure. The currency of the country was altered at his suggestion, and his counsels swayed everything in France. However, England was still at his heart; and leaving a country that his sword and his policy had conquered, as soon as he could do so with any security, he carried his beautiful bride to be crowned in London.
The moment, however, that his foot was out of France his interests in that country declined; and the rashness of his officers brought confusion and ruin into his affairs. Town after town was taken by the Dauphin; and at length the duke of Clarence, the English monarch’s brother, and all the chivalry that accompanied him, were defeated at Baugy in Anjou, the duke himself, as well as three thousand of his men, remaining dead upon the field. This news, accompanied by the farther tidings that the Dauphin was advancing to besiege Chartres, called upon the king imperatively to return to France; and leaving the queen, who was now near her confinement, to follow at a future time, Henry set out for Calais accompanied by four thousand men-at-arms and twenty-four thousand archers.
His coming gave new courage to the Burgundian faction, and struck fear into the followers of the Dauphin. Scarcely pausing at all in the capital, the English monarch advanced direct towards Chartres, before which the Dauphin had already been encamped three weeks; but long ere the English reached the town the gates were free, and the adverse army with all speed retreated towards Touraine. Thither the English monarch followed, breathing revenge for the death of his brother. Dreux and Beaugeney-sur-Loire were conquered by the way; but after pursuing the Dauphin ineffectually for some time, the scarcity of provisions obliged him to return towards Normandy. On his march back, he is said to have fallen in with a party of the Armagnac faction, who retreated before him into a castle called Rougemont, which was instantly assailed and taken by the English. All who were within, the French historians assert, to the number of sixty persons, were, by the king’s order, drowned in the Loire, a fact which accords too well with the manners of the time and some parts of the monarch’s own character.[2]
The town of Meaux was the next object of attack, and a long and courageous defence was made by the Dauphinois within. After Henry had lain a considerable time before the city, an attempt was made by a celebrated knight, named Offemont, whom the garrison had invited to command them, to force his way into the town during the night. A ladder had been let down, and the knight with forty men-at-arms had reached the foot of the walls. One passed after another, but Offemont himself remained below till nearly the whole were in safety. When, at last, he was in the act of mounting, one of the spokes of the ladder unhappily broke under his weight, and he was cast headlong into the ditch below. He was thence drawn out, not by his friends, but by his enemies, whom the noise of his fall and the exclamations of his followers brought to the spot; and he remained for some time a prisoner in the hands of the English.
About this time the news was brought to the king of the birth of his son, the unfortunate Henry VI; and, as soon as possible afterwards, the queen herself hastened to join him, bringing considerable reinforcements under John Duke of Bedford.
The day after the capture of the lord of Offemont, the town of Meaux itself was taken by assault, but the besieged retreated into a fortified market-place, where they continued to defend themselves. At length, hopeless of aid, and almost at the end of their provisions, they entered into a treaty of capitulation; by which several of their bravest leaders were delivered up to the wrath of the English monarch, who caused them to be put to death.
Against some of these were urged various crimes which rendered them worthy of punishment; but their principal offence was probably their derision of the king, to personate whom, they had at one time brought an ass upon the walls, and making it bray, called to the English to come and succour their monarch. One poor man, however, who was afterwards put to death in Paris, we only find charged with blowing a horn for the besieged.
The fall of Meaux, like that of Rouen, brought with it the surrender of an immense number of other places, but this was the last great military undertaking which Henry conducted in person. From Meaux he went direct to Vincennes to meet his queen, who was at this time on her journey from Calais, and thence proceeded with the king and queen of France to Paris, where various transactions took place relative to the internal policy of the country. The court soon removed thence to Senlis, which Henry continued to make his principal abode, till news from the banks of the Loire roused him from inactivity.
The Dauphin, now finding the English monarch removed from his immediate neighbourhood, again advanced with all the forces he could gather, and laid siege to Cônesur-Loire, then garrisoned by the troops of Burgundy. The town, hard pressed, was obliged to treat, and agreed to surrender, unless the duke of Burgundy should give battle to the Dauphin in its defence, before the 16th day of August ensuing. The tidings were communicated to the duke by the garrison, and at the same time a herald from the Dauphin defied him to the field on the day named. The duke instantly accepted the challenge, and sent to all his allies, as customary on such occasions, begging their aid and support in the day of battle. Amongst the rest he demanded the assistance of forces from the king of England, to be led by such of his famous leaders as he could well spare. Henry, however, though already unwell, declared that he would send no one to the aid of his good cousin of Burgundy, but go himself, and accordingly commanded his brother the duke of Bedford, as I have mentioned elsewhere, to lead his troops from Paris and that neighbourhood, whilst he himself set out from Senlis on horseback. At Melun, however, his sickness had so far increased, that, no longer able to sit on his horse, he attempted to proceed in a litter, but was at length obliged to turn towards Vincennes, where each day brought him nearer to the tomb.
The duke of Bedford, as I have noticed in the life of that prince, had led the English forces to Cône, from which the Dauphin had already retreated, and the English prince returned just in time to witness the death of his brother.
Henry was sensible of his danger, and calling his relations around him, made those dispositions which he thought necessary for securing his dominions to his child. He then insisted upon his physicians informing him how long he had to live, and being told that his life could not last much more than two hours, he prepared to meet death with the same courage which he had evinced during life. After going through all the ceremonial duties of the Catholic religion, he commanded some particular psalms to be sung in his chamber, and died very nearly at the time his physicians had predicted. The disease, which cut him off in the career of conquest, has not been clearly ascertained; the French declaring it to have been St. Anthony’s fire, and the English fistula.
Henry V was a great conqueror, and a wise, prudent, and politic prince. His two greatest faults seem to have been ambition and cruelty; the first was an inheritance, and the second, perhaps, was less an effect of a harsh nature than of hasty passion. We seldom find that he committed any deliberate act of barbarity, and those things which most stain his name were generally done under feelings of great irritation. His conduct to the earl of March, the heir of Richard II, and the respect he paid to the memory of that unhappy king himself, are proofs of a generous nature; and of all his conquests, the greatest he ever achieved was the first—that over himself.
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[1] His title is properly John the Fearless (sans peur). We likewise say Charles the Bold, of Burgundy, whereas his proper designation is Charles the Rash (téméraire).
[2] The French historians attribute great cruelty to Henry.
