PART IV.
LANCASTER, YORK, AND TUDOR. 1399—1509.

2. Death of Richard II. 1400.—A few weeks after the suppression of this conspiracy it was rumoured that Richard had died in prison at Pontefract. According to Henry's account of the matter he had voluntarily starved himself to death. Few, however, doubted that he had been put to death by Henry's orders. To prove the untruth of this story, Henry had the body brought to St. Paul's, where he showed to the people only the face of the corpse, as if this could be any evidence whatever. After Richard's death, if hereditary succession had been regarded, the person having a claim to the crown in preference to Henry was the young Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, the descendant of Lionel, Duke of Clarence (see p. 287). Henry therefore took care to keep the boy under custody during the whole of his reign.

3. Henry IV. and the Church.—Besides seeking the support of the commonalty, Henry sought the support of the Church. Since the rise of the friars at the beginning of the thirteenth century (see p. 191) the Church had produced no new orders of monks or friars. In the thirteenth and fourteenth she produced the schoolmen, a succession of great thinkers who systematised her moral and religious teaching. Imagining that she had no more to learn, she now attempted to strengthen herself by persecuting those who disbelieved her teaching, and after the suppression of the revolt of the peasants, made common cause with the landlords, who feared pecuniary loss from the emancipation of the villeins. This conservative alliance against social and religious change was the more easily made because many of the bishops were now members of noble families, instead of springing, as had usually been the case in the better days of the mediæval Church, from poor or middle-class parentage. In the reign of Richard II. a Courtenay, a kinsman of the Earl of Devonshire, had become first Bishop of London (see p. 263), and then Archbishop of Canterbury. He was succeeded in his archbishopric by an Arundel, brother of the Earl of Arundel who had been executed by Richard, and Archbishop Arundel was in the days of Henry IV. the spokesman of the clergy.

5. Henry IV. and Owen Glendower. 1400—1402.—If Henry found it difficult to maintain order in England, he found it still more difficult to keep the peace on the borders of Wales. In 1400 an English nobleman, Lord Grey of Ruthyn, seized on an estate belonging to Owen Glendower, a powerful Welsh gentleman. Owen Glendower called the Welsh to arms, ravaged Lord Grey's lands, and proclaimed himself Prince of Wales. For some years Wales was practically independent. English townsmen and yeomen were ready to support Henry against any sudden attempt of the nobility to crush him with their retainers, but they were unwilling to bear the burden of taxation needed for the steady performance of a national task. In the meanwhile Henry was constantly exposed to secret plots. In 1401 he found an iron with four spikes in his bed. In the autumn of 1402 he led an expedition into Wales, but storms of rain and snow forced him back. His English followers attributed the disaster to the evil spirits which, as they fully believed, were at the command of the wizard Glendower.

6. The Rebellion of the Percies. 1402—1404.—The Scots were not forgetful of the advantages to be derived from the divisions of England. They had amongst them some one—whoever he may have been—whom they gave out to be King Richard, and when Henry marched against Wales in 1402 they invaded England. They were met by the Percies and defeated at Homildon Hill. The Percies had still something of the enormous power of the feudal barons of the eleventh century. Their family estates stretched over a great part of Northumberland, and as they were expected to shield England against Scottish invasions they were obliged to keep up a military retinue which might be employed against the king as well as in his service. It was mainly through their aid that Henry had seated himself on the throne. Their chief, the Earl of Northumberland, and his brother, the Earl of Worcester, were aged men, but Northumberland's son, Henry Percy—Harry Hotspur as he was usually called—was of a fiery temper, and disinclined to submit to insult. Hotspur's wife was a Mortimer, and her brother, Sir Edmund Mortimer, the uncle of the young Earl of March, had been taken prisoner by Glendower. It was noticed that Henry, who had ransomed other prisoners, took no steps to ransom Mortimer, and it was believed that he was in no hurry to set free one whose hereditary claim to the crown, like that of the Earl of March, came before his own. Other causes contributed to irritate the Percies, and in 1403, bringing with them as allies the Scottish prisoners whom they had taken at Homildon Hill, they marched southwards against Henry. Southern England might not be ready adequately to support Henry in an invasion of Wales, but it was in no mood to allow him to be dethroned by the Percies. It rallied to his side, and enabled him signally to defeat the Percies at Shrewsbury. Hotspur was killed in the fight, and his uncle, the Earl of Worcester, being captured, was beheaded without delay. Northumberland, who was not present at the battle, was committed to prison in 1404, but was pardoned on promise of submission.

8. The Capture of the Scottish Prince. 1405.—Early in 1405 Henry was threatened with a fresh attack. Charles VI. of France was now a confirmed lunatic, and his authority had mainly fallen into the hands of his brother Louis, Duke of Orleans, a profligate and unscrupulous man who was regarded by the feudal nobility of France as their leader. The Duke of Orleans refused to consider himself bound to Henry by the truce which had been made with Richard, and, forming an alliance with Owen Glendower, prepared to send a fleet to his aid. When there was war between England and France the Scots seldom remained quiet, but this time Henry was freed from that danger by an unexpected occurrence. The reigning King of Scotland was Robert III., whose father, Robert II., had been the first king of the House of Stuart, and had ascended the throne after the death of David Bruce, as being the son of his sister Margaret.[28] Robert III., weakly in mind and body, had committed to the custody of his brother, the Duke of Albany, his eldest son, the Duke of Rothesay, who had gained an evil name by his scandalous debauchery. Rothesay died in the prison in which his uncle had confined him, and popular rumour alleged that Albany had murdered him to clear the way to the throne. Robert now sent young James, his only surviving son, to be educated in France in order to save him from Albany's machinations. On his way the prince was captured by an English ship, and delivered to Henry, who kept him under guard as a hostage for the peaceful behaviour of his countrymen. The prince, he said, should have been sent to him to be educated, as he could talk French as well as the king of France. When Robert died soon afterwards the captive became King James I.; but he was not allowed to return home, and Albany ruled Scotland as regent in his name.

11. Henry, Prince of Wales. 1409—1410.—No one had been more helpful to the king in these wars than his son, Henry, Prince of Wales. He had fought at Shrewsbury and in Wales, and had learnt to command as well as to fight. Young as he was—in 1409 he was but twenty-two—he was already seen to be a man born to have the mastery. He took his place in his father's council as well as in his armies in the field. He was skilful, resolute, always knowing his own mind, prompt to act as each occasion arose. He was, moreover, unfeignedly religious. It seemed as if a king as great as Edward I. was about to ascend the throne. Yet between the character of Edward I. and the character of Prince Henry there was a great difference. Edward I. worked for the future as well as for the present. His constructive legislation served his country for generations after his death. Even his mistaken attempt to unite England and Scotland was, to some extent at least, an anticipation of that which was done by the Act of Union four hundred years after his death. The young Henry had no such power of building for the future. He worked for the present alone, and his work crumbled away almost as soon as he was in his grave. His ideas were the ordinary ideas of his age, and he never originated any of his own. In 1410, when a heretic, Badby, was led to be burnt, the Prince in vain urged him to recant. As the flames blazed up, the poor wretch, stung by the torment, cried for mercy. The Prince bade the executioners drag away the blazing faggots, and offered Badby support for his lifetime if he would abandon his heresy. Badby refused, and the Prince sternly ordered the executioners to push the faggots back and to finish their cruel work. In that very year the House of Commons, which was again urging the king to confiscate the revenues of the clergy, even urged him also to soften the laws against the Lollards. The king refused, and he had no opposition to fear from the Prince of Wales.

12. The Last Years of Henry IV. 1411—1413.—It was not long before a bitter quarrel broke out between Henry IV. and his son, which lasted till the death of the old man. In later times stories were told how Prince Henry gave himself up to the society of low and debauched companions, how he amused himself by robbing the receivers of his own rents, and how, having struck Chief Justice Gascoigne for sitting in judgment on one of his unruly followers, he was sent to prison for contempt of court. There is no real evidence in support of these stories; but there is good reason to believe that, though they were certainly exaggerated, they were not altogether without foundation. Since 1410 the Prince kept house in the heart of London, and, as a young and active man suddenly called from service in the field to live in the midst of the temptations of a city, he may very well have developed a taste for boisterous amusements, even if he did not fall into grosser forms of dissipation. It is certain that during this period of his life he ran deeply into debt, and was no longer on good terms with his father. Yet even the story about the Chief Justice goes on to say that the Prince took his punishment meekly and offered no resistance, and that his father thanked God that he had so upright a judge and so obedient a son. Political disagreement probably widened the breach between the King and the Prince. Henry IV. had grown accustomed to live from hand to mouth, and had maintained himself on the throne rather because Englishmen needed a king than because he was himself a great ruler. In his foreign policy he was swayed by the interests of the moment. In 1411 he helped the Burgundians against the Armagnacs. In 1412 he helped the Armagnacs against the Burgundians. Prince Henry already aimed at a steady alliance with the Burgundians, with a view to a policy more thoroughgoing than that of keeping a balance between the French parties. The king, too, was subject to epileptic attacks, and to a cutaneous disorder which his ill-willers branded by the name of leprosy. It has even been said that in 1412 the Prince urged his father to abdicate in his favour. If so, he had not long to wait for the crown. In 1413 Henry IV. died, and Henry V. sat upon his throne.

13. Henry V. and the Lollards. 1413—1414.—Henry V. was steadied by the duties which now devolved upon him. He indeed dismissed from the chancellorship Archbishop Arundel, who had supported his father against himself, and gave it to his half-uncle, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, one of the legitimated sons of John of Gaunt and Catherine Swynford (see p. 282), but he allowed no plans of vengeance to take possession of his mind. His first thought was to show that he had confidence in his own title to the crown. He liberated the Earl of March, and transferred the body of Richard II. to a splendid tomb at Westminster, as if he had nothing to fear from any competitor. If there was one thing on which, as far as England was concerned, his heart was set, it was on strengthening the religion of his ancestors. He founded three friaries and he set himself to crush the Lollards. Sir John Oldcastle, who bore the title of Lord Cobham in right of his wife, was looked up to by the Lollards as their chief supporter. Oldcastle was brought before Archbishop Arundel. Both judge and accused played their several parts with dignity. Arundel without angry reviling asserted the necessity of accepting the teaching of the Church. Oldcastle with modest firmness maintained the falsity of many of its doctrines. In the end he was excommunicated, but before any further action could be taken he escaped, and was nowhere to be found. His followers were so exasperated as to form a plot against the king's life. Early in 1414 Henry fell upon a crowd of them in St. Giles's Fields. Most escaped, but of those who were taken the greater part were hanged or burnt. The result was a statute giving fresh powers to the king for the punishment of the Lollards. Every book written by them was to be confiscated. Three years later (1417) Oldcastle was seized and burnt. He was the last of the Lollards to play an historical part. The Lollards continued to exist in secret, especially in the towns, but there was never again any one amongst them who combined religious fervour with cultivated intelligence.

14. Henry's Claim to the Throne of France. 1414.—Henry V. was resolved to uphold the old foreign policy of the days of Edward III. as well as the old religion. In 1414, whilst he amused the French court by offers of friendship, he was in reality preparing to demand the crown of France as the right of the king of England, leaving out of sight the consideration that if the claim of Edward III. had been worth anything at all, it would have descended to the Earl of March and not to himself. Everything seemed to combine to make easy an attack on France. Burgundians and Armagnacs were engaged in a death-struggle. In 1413 a riotous Burgundian mob had made itself master of Paris and the Government. Then the Armagnacs had got the upper hand, and the Duke of Burgundy was driven back to his own dominions. Henry now made an alliance with the Duke of Burgundy against the ruling powers, and prepared to invade the distracted land. Thus far he proceeded in imitation of Edward III., who had attacked Philip VI. in alliance with the Flemings. With Edward III., however, the claim to the French crown had always been a secondary consideration. He went to war because French sailors plundered English ports and the French king assisted the Scots. Henry had no such reason to urge. He went to war because he was young and warlike, because the enterprise was easy, and because foreign conquest would unite all Englishmen round his throne. When once the war was begun he was certain to carry it on in a different spirit from that of Edward III. Edward had gone to weaken the plunderers by plundering in return, and to fight battles only when they happened to come in his way. Henry went with the distinct resolution to conquer France and to place the French crown on his own head. Every step which he took was calculated with skill for the attainment of this end. Of immediate, perhaps of lifelong, success Henry was as nearly certain as it was possible to be. Yet, if he had remembered what had been the end of campaigns adorned by the brilliant victories of Creçy and Poitiers, he might have known that all that he could do would end in ultimate failure, and that the day must come when divided France would unite to cast out, if not himself, at least his heirs. It was significant that when his Chancellor, Beaufort, announced to Parliament the king's intention, he took for his text, after the manner of political speakers in those days, 'Let us work while it is called to-day.' Henry was not inclined, as Edward I. had been, to take thought for a distant morrow.

15. The Invasion of France. 1415.—In 1415 Henry openly made his claim and gathered his army at Southampton. He there detected a conspiracy to place the Earl of March on the throne, which had been formed by Lord Scrope and Sir Thomas Grey, in combination with March's brother-in-law, the Earl of Cambridge, a son of the Duke of York (see genealogy at p. 327), the son of Edward III. All three were executed, and then Henry sailed for France. He landed at the mouth of the Seine and besieged Harfleur. Harfleur fell after an heroic defence, and the Seine valley lay open to Henry.[29] Over two-thirds of his army, however, had perished from dysentery and fever, and with no more, even at the highest calculation, than 15,000 men, he was unable to take advantage of the opportunity to march upon Paris. His brother the Duke of Clarence, urged him to return to England, but Henry knew that if he went back with baffled hopes his throne would hardly stand the shock. He resolved to march to Calais. It might be that he would find a Creçy on the way.

17. The Battle of Agincourt, October 25, 1415.—In the early morning, mass was said in the English army, and Henry's scanty followers prayed earnestly that their king's right, as they believed it to be, might be shown on that day. Henry's own prayers were long and fervid. He was told that it was the hour of prime, the first hour of prayer. "Now," he said, "is good time, for all England prayeth for us, and, therefore, be of good cheer." He then went forth to marshal his army. To a knight who wished that every brave Englishman now at home were there, he replied that he would not have one man more. Few as they were, they were in the hands of God, who could give them the victory. Henry's tactics were those of Creçy. He drew up his archers between thick woods which defended their flanks, and with sharp stakes planted in the ground to defend them in front, placing his dismounted horsemen at intervals between the bodies of archers. The French, however, showed no signs of attacking, and Henry, knowing that unless he cut his way through his soldiers would starve, threw tactics to the winds and ordered his archers to advance. He had judged wisely. The French horsemen were on ploughed ground soaked with rain, and when at last they charged, the legs of their horses stuck fast in the clinging mud. The English arrows played thickly on them. Immovable and helpless, they were slaughtered as they stood. In vain their dismounted horsemen pushed forward in three columns upon the English knights. Their charge was vigorously resisted, and the archers, overlapping each column, drew forth the heavy leaden mallets which each man carried, and fell upon the helpless rout with blows which crashed through the iron headpieces of the Frenchmen. Such as could escape fled hastily to the rear, throwing into wild confusion the masses of their countrymen who had not as yet been engaged. The battle was won, but unfortunately the victory was stained by a cruel deed. Some French plunderers had got into the rear to seize upon the baggage, and Henry, believing that a fresh enemy was upon him, gave orders, which were promptly carried out, to slay the prisoners. The loss of the French was enormous, and fell heavily on their nobility, always eager to be foremost in fight. Amongst the prisoners who were spared was the young Duke of Orleans.

19. Henry's Conquest of Normandy. 1417—1419.—Henry seized the opportunity and landed in Normandy. Caen was taken by storm, and in a few weeks all Normandy except Rouen had submitted to Henry. There had been a terrible butchery when Caen was stormed, but when once submission was secured Henry took care that justice and order should be enforced, and that his soldiers should abstain from plunder and outrage. In Paris affairs were growing worse. The citizens rose against the Armagnacs and imprisoned all of them on whom they could lay hands. Then the mob burst into the prisons and massacred the prisoners, the Count of Armagnac himself being one of the number. Henry's army in the meanwhile closed round Rouen. The magistrates, to prolong the defence, thrust out the poorer inhabitants. Henry, who knew not pity when there was a practical object to be gained, thrust them back. During five months the poor wretches wandered about half starved, dying off day by day. On Christmas Day, in honour of Christ's nativity, Henry sent some food to the few who were left. Famine did its work within as well as without the walls, and on January 19, 1419, Rouen, the old ducal capital of the Norman kings, surrendered to Henry.

20. The Murder of the Duke of Burgundy and the Treaty of Troyes. 1419—1420.—In the summer of 1419 English troops swept the country even up to the walls of Paris. Henry, however, gained more by the follies and crimes of his enemies than by his own skill. Terrified at the prospect of losing all, Burgundians and Armagnacs seemed for a moment to forget their quarrel and to be ready to join together in defence of their common country; but the hatred in their hearts could not be rooted out. At a conference between the Duke of Burgundy and the Dauphin on the bridge of Montereau, angry words sprang easily to the lips of both. The Duke put his hand on the pommel of his sword, and some of the Dauphin's attendants, believing their master's life in danger, fell on the Duke and slew him. After this an agreement between the factions was no longer possible. The new Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, at once joined the English against the Dauphin, whom he regarded as an accomplice of his father's murderers. Even Queen Isabella, the mother of the Dauphin, shared in the outcry against her own son, and in 1420 was signed the Treaty of Troyes, by which the Dauphin was disinherited in favour of Henry, who was to be king of France on the death of Charles VI. In accordance with its terms, Henry married Charles's daughter Catherine, and ruled France as regent till the time came when he was to rule it as king.

21. The Close of the Reign of Henry V. 1420—1422.—The Treaty of Troyes was very similar in its stipulations to that which Henry II. had made with Stephen at Wallingford (see p. 137). The result was, as might have been expected, totally different. Henry II. had the English nation behind his back. Henry V. presumed to rule over a foreign nation, the leaders of which had only accepted him in a momentary fit of passion. He never got the whole of France into his power. He held Paris and the North, whilst the Duke of Burgundy held the East. South of the Loire the Armagnacs were strong, and that part of France stood by the Dauphin, though even here the English possessed a strip of land along the sea-coast in Guienne and Gascony, and at one time drew over some of the lords to admit Henry's feudal supremacy. In 1420 Henry fancied it safe for him to return to England, but, in his absence, in the spring of 1421 his brother, the Duke of Clarence, was defeated and slain at Baugé by a force of Frenchmen and of Scottish auxiliaries. Clarence had forgotten that English victories had been due to English archery. He had plunged into the fight with his horsemen, and had paid the penalty for his rashness with his life. Henry hurried to the rescue of his followers, and drove the French over the Loire; though Orleans, on the north bank of that river, remained unconquered. Instead of laying siege to it Henry turned sharply round northwards to besiege Meaux, the garrison of which was plundering the country round Paris in the name of the Dauphin, and seemed likely to shake the fidelity to Henry even of Paris itself. Meaux held out for many months. When at last it fell, in 1422, Henry was already suffering from a disease which carried him off before the end of the year at the age of thirty-five. Henry V. had given his life to the restoration of the authority of the Church in England, and to the establishment of his dynasty at home by means of the glory of foreign conquest. What man could do he did, but he could not achieve the impossible.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER XX.
HENRY VI. AND THE LOSS OF FRANCE. 1422—1451.

2. Bedford's Success in France. 1423—1424.—The English nation was bent upon maintaining its supremacy in France. Bedford was a good warrior and an able statesman. In 1423 he prudently married the sister of Philip of Burgundy, hoping thereby to secure permanently the all-important fidelity of the Duke. His next step was to place difficulties in the way of the Scottish auxiliaries who poured into France to the help of Charles. Through his influence the captive James I. (see p. 295) was liberated and sent home to Scotland, on the understanding that he would prevent his subjects from aiding the enemies of England. Bedford needed all the support he could find, as the French had lately been gaining ground. In 1424, however, Bedford defeated them at Verneuil. In England it was believed that Verneuil was a second Agincourt, and that the French resistance would soon be at an end.

4. Gloucester and Beaufort. 1425—1428.—In England as well as on the Continent Gloucester's self-willed restlessness roused enemies, the most powerful of them being his uncle, the Chancellor, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester (see pp. 301, 335), a wealthy and ambitious prelate not without those statesmanlike qualities which were sadly lacking to Gloucester. If Beaufort ruled the Council, Gloucester had the art of making himself popular with the multitude, whose sympathies were not likely to be given to a bishop of the type of Beaufort, who practised no austerities and who had nothing in him to appeal to the popular imagination. So bitter was the feud between Gloucester and Beaufort that in 1426 Bedford was obliged to visit England to keep the peace between them. Before he returned to France he persuaded Beaufort to surrender the chancellorship to Kemp, the Bishop of London, and to leave England for a time. Moreover, in 1427 he himself swore that as long as the king was under age the Council and not the Protector was to govern. When Gloucester was asked to take the same oath, he signed it, but refused to swear. In 1428, after Bedford had returned to France, Beaufort came back, bringing with him from Rome the title of Cardinal, and authority to raise soldiers for a crusade against heretics in Bohemia. A storm was at once raised against him. A Cardinal, it was said, was a servant of the Roman See, and as no man could serve two masters, he ought not to hold an English bishopric or to sit in the English Council, far less to send to Bohemia English troops which were needed in France. Gloucester fancied that the opportunity of overthrowing his rival had come. Beaufort, however, was too prudent to press his claims. He absented himself from the Council and allowed the men whom he had raised for Bohemia to be sent to France instead. Before the end of the year the outcry against him died away, and, Cardinal as he was, he resumed his old place in the Council.