Footnote 102: When he sailed from Southampton in his first expedition to France, he went on board his own good ship, the Trinity:
"But the grandest ship of all that went,
Was that in which our good King sailed."
Old Ballad.(back)
Footnote 103: Pell Rolls, 16 July 1418.(back)
Footnote 104: Among the preparations for bringing Henry's corpse with all the solemn pomp which an admiring, grateful, and mourning nation could provide, all ships and vessels on the east coast were impressed, and sent to Calais.—Pell Rolls, Sept. 26, 1422.(back)
Footnote 105: To suppose that this conspiracy could have originated, as it has been lately (Turner's History) suggested, in "the resisting spirit which Henry's religious persecutions occasioned, and which led some to wish for another sovereign," is altogether gratuitous, and contrary to fact. He was not carrying on religious persecution, and no resisting spirit on that ground had manifested itself at all.(back)
Footnote 106: Richard of Coningsburg, second son of Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, fifth son of Edward III, was high in favour with Henry V, who created him Earl of Cambridge in the second year of his reign. He married Ann, daughter of Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, whose son Richard (aged fourteen in the third year of Henry V,) was heir to Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March. Leland says, that the "main design of the Earl of Cambridge's conspiracy was to raise Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, to the throne, as heir to Lionel, Duke of Clarence; and then, in case that Earl had no child, the right would come to the Earl of Cambridge's wife, (sister to the same Edmund,) and to her issue, as it afterwards did; and this is most likely to be true, whatever hath been otherwise reported."—Lel. Coll. i. 701.(back)
Footnote 107: To one of these, Robert Hull, the payment of one hundred marks was ordered to be made, February 7, 1418, for lately holding his sessions in South Wales; and also for his trouble and expenses in delivering the gaol at Southampton of Richard Earl of Cambridge, Henry Lord Scrope, and Thomas Grey, Knight, there for treason adjudged and put to death.(back)
Footnote 108: The King's writ, dated Southampton, 8th of August, orders "the head of Henry Lescrop de Masham to be stuck up at York, and the head of Thomas Grey de Heton to be stuck up at Newcastle upon Tyne."—Close Roll, 3 Henry V. m. 16.(back)
Footnote 109: Cotton MS. Claudius A. viii. 2.(back)
Footnote 110: His pardon is dated 8th August.(back)
Footnote 111: Some of the best antiquaries of the present day are disposed to pronounce, that a pardon was never granted, unless there had existed some cause of suspicion or offence,—something, in short, which might have involved in trouble the individual for whom the pardon was obtained.(back)
Footnote 112: (Ellis, Second Series, vol. i. p. 44.) "This conspiracy was the first spark of the flame which in the course of time consumed the two houses of Lancaster and York. Richard Earl of Cambridge was the father of Richard Duke of York, and the grandfather of King Edward IV."(back)
Footnote 113: The extraordinary prevalence of an opinion that Richard was still alive and in Scotland, has already been noticed. The Chronicle of England informs us of some particulars relative to the means by which the reports concerning him were propagated, and the prompt, severe, and decisive measures adopted by the King and his supporters for suppressing them. "And at this time (5 Henry IV.) Serle, yeoman of King Richard, came into England out of Scotland, and told to divers people that King Richard was alive in Scotland, and so much people believed in his words. Wherefore a great part of the people of the realm were in great error and grudging against the King, through information of lies and false leasing that this Serle had made. But at the last he was taken in the North country, and by law was judged to be drawn through every city and good burgh town in England, and was afterwards hanged at Tyburn and quartered." It is also certain that many members of the monastic orders were executed for spreading similar reports. See Nichols' Leicester, vol. i. p. 368.(back)
Footnote 114: It was shortly before he left London on this expedition that Henry made that grant (to which reference was made in the early part of our first volume) of 20l. per annum on Joan Waring, his nurse.—Rol. Pat. 3 Henry V. m. 13. It is dated June 5th.(back)
Footnote 115: At the place also where he encamped, he solemnly celebrated the festival of the Assumption [so called] of the Virgin Mary, a feast observed, in the countries on the Continent in communion with Rome, with great rejoicings and religious ceremonies, in the present day.(back)
Footnote 116: See Chronicler A, and St. Remy, p. 82, quoted in Nicolas' Agincourt.(back)
Footnote 117: Sloane MS. 1776.(back)
Footnote 118: A very curious turn has been given inadvertently to this circumstance by the translation of the ecclesiastic's sentence, and the comment upon it, now found in the Appendix to the "Battle of Agincourt." "Rege præsente, pedes ejus tergente post extremam unctionem propriis manibus,"—words which can only be translated so as to represent the King, "after extreme unction, wiping the feet" of the Bishop,—the Editor of that work, by the careless blunder of an amanuensis, or some unaccountable accident, is made to render by the strange sentence, "covering his feet with extreme unction;" and he is then led, as a comment upon that text, to observe, that "the Bishop received from Henry's own hand the last offices of religion." Extreme unction, the last of the seven sacraments of the see of Rome, was administered doubtless by an attendant priest.(back)
Footnote 119: Cotton MS. Cleopatra, C. iv. f. 24.(back)
Footnote 120: Monstrelet informs us that the treasure found by Henry at Harfleur was immense. A letter to Henry from two of his officers, "counters of your receipt," specifies that they were then in possession for the King of treasure to this amount: of coined gold, 30,000l.; in silver coined, 1,000,000l.; and in wedges of silver, drawing by estimation to half a ton weight; at the same time desiring to receive instructions as to the mode of conveying it to Rouen. This letter, dated 19th of May, must belong to the year 1419, in the January of which Rouen was taken.—Ellis's Letters, xxvi.(back)
Footnote 121: Abrégé Historique.(back)
Footnote 122: Ibid. p. 114.(back)
Footnote 123: There is a doubt whether it is the xvi. or the xxvi.—the first x in the manuscript having, perhaps, been obliterated by the fire which damaged it.—Fœd. vol. ix. 313.(back)
Footnote 124: On the 4th of October fishermen in different parts were ordered to go with all speed, taking their tackle with them, to Harfleur, to fish for the support of the King and his army.(back)
Footnote 125: This is a very curious fact, not generally known. The battle of Agincourt, humanly speaking, would not have been fought, had it not been for the falsehood of a Frenchman.(back)
Footnote 126: Shakspeare makes use of this anecdote, and fixes the robbery on Bardolph.(back)
Footnote 127: Sir William Bardolf, Lieutenant of Calais, hearing of the King's danger, sent part of his garrison to his assistance; but that little body, consisting of about three hundred men-at-arms, were either destroyed or taken prisoners by the men of Picardy.(back)
Footnote 128: After quitting Bonnieres, Henry passed unawares beyond the place intended by his officers for his quarters; but, instead of returning, he replied that, being in his war-coat, he could not return without displeasing God. He therefore ordered his advanced guard to take a more distant position, and himself occupied the spot which had been intended for them. This anecdote is recorded as an instance of the care with which Henry avoided whatever might appear of ill omen. Probably he only followed the usual maxims of an army in march; that maxim originating, it may be, in superstition.(back)
Footnote 129: And yet there were so many priests present (with the baggage) during the battle, that the chaplain calls them the clerical army, whose weapons were prayers and intercessions, "Nos qui ascripti sumus clericali militiæ."(back)
Footnote 130: In the "History of Agincourt," the translator of the Chaplain's Memoir (Sloane 1776) has given a far more faint representation than the original will warrant of the sufferings to which the English troops were exposed through this night of present fatigue and discomfort, and of anxious preparation for so tremendous a struggle as awaited them on the morrow. The ecclesiastic, who was himself among the sufferers, and who has furnished a very graphic description of the whole affair, says, "The King turned aside to a small village, where we had houses, but very few indeed, and gardens and orchards to rest in." "Ubi habuimus domos sed paucissimas, hortosque et pomaria pro requiescione nostra." This the translator renders, "Where we had houses to rest in, but very scanty gardens and orchards." The scanty supply was not of gardens and orchards, but of houses to rest in. Consequently, except such as those very few houses could accommodate, the English soldiers were all compelled to bivouac, exposed to the drenching rains which fell through the night. Of orchards and gardens there was doubtless an abundant supply, but they afforded little shelter from the weather, and no means to the troops of taking refreshing rest.(back)
Footnote 131: St. Remy.(back)
Footnote 132: The statement that Henry offered to repair all the injury he had done to France, is deservedly considered unworthy of credit.(back)
Footnote 133: The present reading in Monstrelet, who details these circumstances with much life and clearness, reports the word used by the English warrior to have been "Nestroque," which has been, with much probability, considered a corruption of "Now strike!" Whether the word is now read as the Author wrote it, is very questionable; many French words in Monstrelet have been mistaken and corrupted by his copyists.(back)
Footnote 134: It must be remembered that the arrival of fresh reinforcements was by no means an improbable occurrence. Anthony, Duke of Brabant, had only reached the field with his men just before the tide of battle turned finally and fatally against the French; nor could Henry possibly know what forces were yet hastening on to dispute with him for the victory afresh.(back)
Footnote 135: One author alone, Jean Le Fevre, states that some of the English, who had taken the prisoners of greatest note and wealth, hesitated to execute the order, from an unwillingness to lose their ransom; and that two hundred archers were commissioned to perform the dreadful office in their stead.(back)
Footnote 136: The passage of M. Petitot, in his History, published in the year 1825, vol. vi. p. 322, which contains this accusation, is as follows: "The Duke of Alençon fought hand to hand with the King of England, and fell gloriously. Towards the end of the struggle, some hundreds of peasants of Picardy, commanded by two gentlemen of the country, believing that the English were vanquished, came to plunder their camp. Henry, fancying that he was about to be attacked by a reinforcement, whose march had been concealed from him, ordered the massacre of the prisoners, and only excepted the princes and generals. This barbarous order was put into execution, and tarnished his victory."(back)
Footnote 137: In the printed copies of Monstrelet the reading is "de la hart," a mistake, it is presumed, for mort. Many such errors occur in his work.(back)
Footnote 138: The Author is compelled to express his regret that some of our own modern writers (among others Goldsmith and Mackintosh) have been led to take a different estimate of the character of this transaction. Whether their judgments were formed after a careful weighing of the several accounts furnished by contemporary authors and eye-witnesses of the conflict, or whether they allowed their feelings of philanthropy, and their abhorrence of cruelty, to dictate their sentence in this case, the Author cannot refer to their works without appealing from them to the facts as they stand in those undisputed records which were accessible alike to them and to ourselves. On this subject Rapin, Carte, Holinshed, Nicolas, with others, may be consulted.(back)
Footnote 139: It is quite impossible to reconcile the different accounts of the loss on the part of the English. Walsingham speaks of thirty only having fallen; De Fenin reports them to have been four or five hundred; whilst Monstrelet raises the number to sixteen hundred.
On the part of the French, Le Fevre says, that from a hundred to six score princes fell, and about seven or eight thousand of noble blood. In the Annales Ecclesiastici of Baronius, continued by Raynaldus, the statement of Theodoric Niemius is quoted, who says (unquestionably without authority) that Henry advanced from Harfleur with sixty thousand men, besides two thousand in attendance on the carriages. He affirms that the French had one hundred thousand men; among whom were one thousand Italians, commanded by Buligard, who had long governed Genoa in favour of the French. He says, moreover, that more than five thousand five hundred French nobles were slain; and fifteen hundred taken prisoners, and carried to England.(back)
Footnote 140: Hume, with his usual inaccuracy, asserts that the French army at Agincourt was headed as well by the Dauphin, as by all the other princes of the blood. The Dauphin wished to assist his countrymen, when they resolved to intercept the invaders; but, as we are expressly told by Le Fevre (c. 59), was not suffered to join the rendezvous. This is not the only mistake into which Hume has fallen in his account of this battle. In one paragraph he reports Henry to have been under the necessity of marching by land from Harfleur to Calais, in order to reach a place of safety from which he might transport his soldiers back to England; in another paragraph he represents him (with the same temerity which had been evinced by his predecessors before the battles of Poictiers and of Cressy) to have ventured without any object of moment, and merely for the sake of plunder, so far into the enemy's country as to leave himself no retreat. He tells us, moreover, that "Henry was master of fourteen thousand prisoners," whom he afterwards says that the King "carried with him to Paris, thence to England." Hume took this also without inquiry. Walsingham says, "Henry took (as they say—ut ferunt,—as though even that estimate required to be supported by common report,) seven hundred prisoners;" and of his prisoners, how many soever they were, he transported (as Des Ursins tells us) only the most considerable to England, dismissing the rest under promise to bring their ransom to him in the field of Lendi, on the feast of St. John in the summer, and, if he were not there, they should be discharged of the debt.(back)
Footnote 141: Of this gallant Welshman, the following account is taken from the Appendix of the "Battle of Agincourt." "Dr. Meyrick (now Sir Samuel) says, Davydd Gam, i.e. Squint-eyed David, was a native of Brecknockshire, and, holding his land of the honour of Hereford, was a strenuous supporter of the Lancastrian interests. He was the son of Llewellyn, descended from Einion Sais, who possessed a handsome property in the parishes of Garthbrengy and Llanddeu. In consequence of an affray in the high street of Brecknock, in which he unfortunately killed his kinsman, he was compelled to fly into England to avoid a threatened prosecution, and became the implacable enemy of Owain Glyndowr, whom he attempted to assassinate. Gam, it may be supposed, was his nick-name, as he called himself David Llewellyn; and there are good grounds for supposing that Shakspeare has caricatured him in Captain Fluellin. His descendants, however, conceiving that his prowess more than redeemed his natural defect, took the name of Game. Sir Walter Raleigh has an eulogium upon his bravery and exploits on the field of Agincourt, in which he compares him to Hannibal. He was knighted on the field with his two companions in glory and death, Sir Roger Vaughan, of Bedwardine in Herefordshire, and Sir Walter, or rather Watkin Llwyd, of the lordship of Brecknock. Sir Roger had married Gwladis, the daughter of Sir David Gamme, who survived him, and became the wife of another hero of Agincourt, Sir William Thomas of Raglan; and Sir Watkin was by his marriage related to Sir Roger."
The Author gives this passage as he finds it, without having attempted to verify the statement as to David Gamme's descent or history. Certainly the testimony which Sir Samuel Meyrick makes Sir Walter Raleigh bear to his "bravery and exploits on the field of Agincourt," cannot be fairly extracted from Sir Walter's own words: "But if Hannibal himself had been sent forth by Mago to view the Romans, he could not have returned with a more gallant report in his mouth than Captain Gamme made unto King Henry the Fifth, saying, 'That of the Frenchmen there were enow to be killed, enow to be taken prisoners, and enow to run away!'" We have no doubt of Captain Gamme's gallant bearing at Agincourt; but Raleigh refers to nothing beyond his report of the numbers of the enemy.—Raleigh, book v. sect. 8.(back)
Footnote 142: The fact is recorded in the Patent Rolls, P. 2, 3 Hen. V.(back)
Footnote 143: The spot from which the battle of Agincourt took its name has been confounded with a place named Azincourt, near the town of Bouchain in French Flanders. On the position of the real field of battle, and its present condition, the Author has much satisfaction in making the following extract from a paper read before the Royal Society of Literature, April 4, 1827, by John Gordon Smith, M.D. who had visited and examined the spot under circumstances of peculiar interest:
"Perhaps I may be pardoned for relating that I had the honour to receive a Waterloo medal on the field of Azincour, or rather, that I had the fortune to belong to one of the British regiments that signalized themselves in the campaign of 1815, and which afterwards was invested with the above-mentioned mark of their sovereign's approbation on the very spot which, nearly four hundred years before, was the scene of the scarcely less glorious triumph of Harry the Fifth of England. In 1816 a portion of the British army was cantoned in the immediate neighbourhood of this celebrated field, and the corps in which I then served made use of it during several months as their ordinary drill-ground.... We amused ourselves with reconnoitring excursions, comparing the actual state of the localities with authentic accounts of the transactions of 1415. The changes that have taken place have been singularly few, and an attentive explorer would be able to trace with considerable accuracy the greater part of the route pursued by the English army in their retreat out of Normandy towards Calais. The field of Azincour remains sufficiently in statu quo to render every account of the battle perfectly intelligible; nor are those wanting near the spot, whose traditionary information enables them to heighten the interest with oral description, accompanied by a sort of ocular demonstration.
"Those who travel to Paris by way of St. Omer and Abbeville, pass over the field of the battle, which skirts the high road to the left, about sixteen miles beyond St. Omer; two on the Paris side of a considerable village or bourg named Fruges; about eight north of the fortified town of Hesdin; and thirty from Abbeville. All accounts of the battle mention the hamlet of Ruisseauville, through which very place the high road to Paris now passes.
"Azincour is a commune or parish consisting of a most uninteresting collection of farmers' residences and cottages, once however distinguished by a castle, of which nothing now remains but the foundation. The scene of the contest lies between this commune and the adjoining one of Tramecour, in a wood belonging to which latter the King concealed those archers whose prowess and vigour contributed so eminently to the glorious result. Part of the wood still remains; though, if I remember rightly, at the time of our visit, the corner into which the bowmen were thrown had been materially thinned, if, indeed, the original timber had not been entirely cut down, and its place been scantily supplied by brush or underwood. Some of the trees, however, in the wood of Tramecour were very old in 1816.
"The road above mentioned is the great post-road; the old road, now degenerated into a mere cart-track, from Abbeville to the once celebrated city of Therouanne, passes over the scene of action, and must have been that by which the French army reached the ground before the English, who had been compelled to make a great circuit."—Vol. i. part ii. p. 57.(back)
Footnote 144: Before his departure from Calais, a dispute arose between him and two noblemen, who had been taken prisoners at Harfleur, and set at liberty on condition of surrendering themselves at Calais. The merits of the case cannot now be known. The one, De Gaucourt, brought an action against the representatives of the other, after his death, and after the death of Henry, to recover what he paid for that other's [D'Estouteville's] ransom. To give a colouring to his case, he charges Henry with refusing to confirm the stipulations made by his representatives at Harfleur, and with other harsh conduct. But an ex parte statement at that time, and under those circumstances, can form no ground of suspicion against a third party.(back)
Footnote 145: See "Battle of Agincourt."(back)
Footnote 146: Various entries occur in the Pell Rolls of money paid for masses for the souls of those who fell in these wars. Among the rest are specified (26th September 1418) Lord Grey of Codnor and Sir John Blount. Two thousand masses were ordered for the souls of Lord Talbot and another. See extracts in English, translated lately, from the Pell Rolls, by Mr. F. Devon. This work, whilst it acquaints the student with the sort of information and evidence which the Pell Rolls may supply, will in other respects assist him in his inquiries; for many valuable and interesting facts are presented to him in the volume: but, to ascertain what those documents really do contain, it is necessary (as in all other cases) to apply at the fountain-head.(back)
Footnote 147: Fœd. viii. 236.(back)
Footnote 148: The second line of this song is variously read. Probably the original words are lost. The reading in the text is conjectural.(back)
Footnote 149: Dr. Burney has here fallen into a most extraordinary mistake. In the very page to which he refers, Elmham, in his turgid manner, assures us that at Henry's coronation the tumultuous clang of so many trumpets made the heavens resound with the roar of thunder. He then describes the sweet strings of the harps soothing the souls of the guests by their soft melody; and the united music of other instruments also, by their dulcet sounds, in which no discord interrupted the harmony, inviting the royal banqueters to full enjoyment of the festival.(back)
Footnote 150: Thomas de Elmham, Vit. et Gest. Hen. V. edit. Hearne, Oxon. 1727, cap. xii. p. 23.(back)
Footnote 151: Burney's History of Music, vol. ii. p. 382.(back)
Footnote 152: For dread neither of least nor of greatest.(back)
Footnote 153: Mr. Turner.(back)
Footnote 154: Another view might be taken of the cause of this delay on the part of Henry. Perhaps he was acting prudently by allowing time for his enemies to weaken each other, and to exhaust their resources by the insatiable demands of civil warfare. Meanwhile, he was not himself idle.(back)
Footnote 155: Lord Talbot was to be associated with the Captain of Calais to receive the Emperor in that city. At Dover, the Duke of Gloucester, with the Lords Salisbury, Furnival, and Haryngton, were to welcome him to the English shores; at Rochester, the Constable and Marshal of England, the Earl of Oxford, and others; at Dartford, the Duke of Clarence, with the Earls of March and Huntingdon, Lord Grey of Ruthing, Lord Abergavenny, and others, were to meet him. At Blackheath, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and good people of London were to await his arrival; whilst Henry himself was to receive Sigismund between Deptford and Southwark, at a place called St. Thomas Watering.—"Privy Council," April 1416, Pour la venue de l'Empereur.(back)
Footnote 156: The Archbishop of Canterbury commanded all his suffragans to take especial care that prayers be offered in all congregations for the good estate of Sigismund.—Rymer's Fœd. 1416.(back)
Footnote 157: Henry was at Smalhithe in Kent (August 22), superintending the building of some ships, when news of this success reached him. He hastened to join the Emperor, who was at Canterbury, and both went to the cathedral together to return thanks for the victory. This happened a week subsequently to their signing of the league of amity mentioned below.(back)
Footnote 158: Rymer, H. V. An. iv.(back)
Footnote 159: The various expedients to which both Henry and his father were driven to raise supplies in any way commensurate with their wants, have repeatedly reminded the Author of the similar means to which their unhappy successor Charles, in his days of far more urgent need and necessity, had recourse. The reader may perhaps be interested by the following document. It is a copy of the letter in which Charles applies to the Provost and Fellows of Oriel College for a loan of their plate. The King's letter is dated January 6th, 1642; and the society, assembled in the chapel on the 8th, vote unanimously to put their silver and gilt vessels at the disposal of their sovereign, scarcely retaining one single piece of plate. (Allocata sunt ad usum serenissimi vasa argentea et deaurata pæne ad unum omnia.) The one retained is said to have been the chalice for the holy communion.
(Extracted from the Register of Oriel College.)
"To our trusty and well-beloved the Provost and Fellowes of Oriel Colledge, in our University of Oxon: Charles R.
"Trusty and well-beloved, wee greete you well. Wee are so well satisfied with your readiness and affection to our service, that wee cannot doubt but you will take all occasions to expresse the same; and as wee are ready to sell or engage any of our land, so have wee melted downe our plate for the paiment of our army, raised for our defence, and the preservation of our kingdome. And having received severall quantityes of plate from divers of our loving subjects, we have removed our mint hither to our citty of Oxford, for the coyning thereof.
"And we do hereby desire you that you will lend unto us all such plate, of what kind soever, which belongs to your colledge; promising you to see the same iustly repaid unto you after the rate of 5 s. the ounce for white, and 5 s. 6 d. for guilt plate, as soon as God shall enable us: for assure yourselves wee shall never let persons of whom wee have so great a care suffer for their affection to us, but shall take speciall order for the repaiment of what you have already lent us, according to our promise, and also of this you now lend in plate; well knowing it to bee the goods of youre colledge that you ought not to alien, though no man will doubt but in such a case you may lawfully lend to assist youre King in such visible necessity. And wee have entrusted our trusty and well-beloved Sir William Parkhurst, Knt. and Thomas Bushee, Esq. officers of our mint, or either of them, to receive the said plate from you; who, uppon weighing thereof, shall give you a receipt under theire or one of their hands for the same.
"And wee assure our selfe of your willingness to gratify us herein; since, beside the more publiche considerations, you cannot but know how much your selves are concerned in our sufferings. And wee shall ever remember this particular service to your advantage.
"Given at our Court at Oxford, the 6 day of January 1642."(back)
Footnote 160: In the letter from Constance, dated the preceding February, Henry was informed that the French had sent a large sum to Genoa to wage [hire] ships to fight with England.(back)
Footnote 161: The Muster Roll of this expedition is preserved in the Chapter-house, Westminster, and is pronounced to be one of the most interesting records of military history now extant.—See Preface to the Norman Rolls, by T.D. Hardy, Esq.(back)
Footnote 162: A long list of the clergy, and of the churches then taken by Henry under his protection, is preserved in the Norman Rolls.—Hardy's edition, p. 331.(back)
Footnote 163: These letters did not come within the Author's knowledge before he had written these brief memoirs of the last years of Henry. It is very satisfactory to find them all confirmatory of his previous views. He has taken especial care to make every, the slightest, correction in his narrative, suggested by authorities from which there is no appeal.(back)
Footnote 164: Norman Rolls, preserved in the Tower, edited by T.D. Hardy, Esq.(back)
Footnote 165: Henry's own letter to the Mayor and Aldermen of London (Liber F. fol. 200), written on the 5th of September, the day after the surrender of Caen, represents the loss on the part of the English to have been very trifling. "On St. Cuthbert's day, God, of his high grace, sent unto our hands our town of Caen by assault, and with right little death of our people, whereof we thank our Saviour as lowly as we can; praying that ye do the same, and as devoutly as ye can. Certifying you also that we and our host be in good prosperity and health, thanked be God of his mercy! who have you in his holy keeping."(back)
Footnote 166: This letter of the King's is only a fragment, without date: who were the persons addressed does not appear; probably he wrote it to his council in 1417 or 1418. Sir Henry Ellis opens his second series of Original Letters with this of Henry V. It is found in MS. Cotton. Vesp. F. iii. fol. 5.(back)
Footnote 167: Probably the mammet, or mawmet, [puppet,] (a corruption, they say, of Mahomet,) of Scotland, was the pretended Richard, the deposed King, whom even now many believed to be still alive there.(back)
Footnote 168: The Duke of Exeter was then governor of Harfleur, but was in England recruiting soldiers to reinforce the King's army in Normandy.(back)
Footnote 169: It is curious to observe, that the Duke of Bedford is reported to have been engaged at his devotions at Bridlington in Yorkshire; and that, on hearing of the invasion, he threw away his beads, and marched with all the forces he could muster to meet the Scots. John of Bridlington seems to have been in an especial manner the patron saint of Henry IV.'s family.(back)
Footnote 170: On the 12th of February 1418, an order is issued to press horses, carts, and other means of conveyance, to carry the jewels, ornaments, and other furniture of the King's chapel to Southampton.(back)
Footnote 171: Henry's own words, in a letter, 21 July 1418, sent from Pont de Larche to the Mayor of London, are: "Since our last departing from Caen, we came before our town of Louviers, and won it by siege; to which place came to us the Cardinal of Ursin from our holy father the Pope, for to treat for the good of peace betwixt both realms, and is gone again to Paris to diligence there in this same matter; but what end it shall draw to we wot not as yet." In this letter he informs us that the attack on Pont de Larche was on the 4th of July; and that, though the enemy had "assembled in great power to resist us, yet God of his mercy showed so for us and for our right, that it was withouten the death of any man's person of ours." He adds that he had just heard of the decidedly hostile intentions of the Duke of Burgundy towards him; so "we hold him our full enemy. He is now at Paris." The King then tells them that he needs not to refer to the death of the Earl of Armagnac, and the slaughter that hath been at Paris; for he was assured that they had full knowledge thereof. He alludes to the massacre of the Armagnac faction by the partisans of the Duke of Burgundy, June 12, 1418. Two thousand persons were murdered in a very brief space of time. The mob dragged the bodies of the Constable and Chancellor through the streets (as Monstrelet tells us) for two or three days.(back)
Footnote 172: Henry's army had received various reinforcements. One accession is recorded by an item in the Pell Rolls, of rather an interesting character, showing that both the Irish and the ecclesiastics of Ireland gave him good and acceptable proof of the interest they took in his success. It is the payment of 19l. 17s. on the 1st of July 1418, "to masters and mariners of Bristol for embarking the Prior of Kilmaynham with two hundred horsemen and three hundred foot-soldiers from Waterford in Ireland, to go to the King in France." An entry also occurs in the following October: "To the Prior of Kilmaynham coming from Ireland to Southampton, with a good company of men, to proceed to Normandy to serve the King in the wars, 100l." An order from the King to his Chancellor, the Bishop of Durham, to expedite ships from Bristol for the transport of these men from Waterford to France, is preserved among the miscellaneous records in the Tower. It is dated June 3rd, at Ber-nay; to which a postscript was added on the next day, urging the utmost expedition, as the troops were tarrying only for the means of sailing.—See Bentley's Excerpta Historica, p. 388.(back)
Footnote 173: One Glomyng was charged with having said, "What doth the King of England at siege before Rouen? An I were there with three thousand men, I would break his siege and make them of Rouen dock his tail." He said, moreover, that "he were not able to abide there, were it [not] that the Duke of Burgundy kept his enemies from him."—Donat. MS. 4601.(back)
Footnote 174: In a very long minute of the Privy Council, the reasons assigned by Henry for wishing to negociate an alliance with the Dauphin are given at length; and ambassadors were appointed to treat with that prince on the 26th of October 1418.—Fœd. ix. p. 626.(back)
Footnote 175: The Author, assisted by his friends, has made diligent inquiry, both in England and on the Continent, for a portrait of Katharine, with a copy of which he was desirous of enriching this volume; but his inquiries have ended in an assurance that no portrait of her is in existence.(back)
Footnote 176: Large cargoes of provisions of every kind were forwarded from England; among others, "stock fish and salmon" are enumerated in the Pell Rolls, 3rd July 1419.(back)
Footnote 177: Monstrelet says, that when Henry made his entry into Rouen, he was followed by a page mounted on a black horse, bearing a lance, at the end of which near the point was fastened a fox's brush by way of streamer, which afforded great matter of remark. Elmham and Stowe give the explanation of this. In 1414, he kept his Lent in the castle of Kenilworth, and caused an arbour to be planted there in the marsh for his pleasure, among the thorns and bushes, where a fox before had harboured; which fox he killed, being a thing then thought to prognosticate that he should expel the crafty deceit of the French King.—See Ellis, Original Letters.(back)
Footnote 178: See Sir H. Ellis, Orig. Let. xix.(back)
Footnote 179: Moryson, in his Travels, book iv. c. 3, gives a most extraordinary and disgusting account of the habits of the Irish. The story of a Bohemian Baron, who visited Morane, one of the native princes, represents the Irish from the highest to the lowest to have continued in the most degraded state of barbarism. In their food, their dwellings, their clothing, (those who had any to wear,) and their general habits, if the accounts in Moryson are not exaggerated, the Irish were not removed many degrees from the wildest savages on earth.(back)
Footnote 180: It is remarkable, that among the many names affixed to this memorial, not one savours of Irish extraction. They all betray their Saxon or (some) their Norman origin.(back)
Footnote 181: This John Talbot, called by courtesy Lord Talbot by right of his wife, was appointed Lieutenant in Ireland in the first year of Henry's reign. He had been employed in the wars of Wales, and was the person against whom the Mayor of Shrewsbury shut the gates. He was conspicuous also as a warrior in the reign of Henry IV.(back)