The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's Self-Made King (32 page)

In the heat of the moment it is unlikely that Henry fully comprehended what had happened. The injustice, we may imagine, consumed him too much. But if Henry was astonished, his father must have been astounded. John had only told the king of Mowbray’s indiscretion in order to focus the king’s retribution on the real culprit, Mowbray, the murderer of the duke of Gloucester. John’s strategy was in tatters. Moreover, his long-term policy of remaining absolutely faithful to the king, so that Richard would never have any reason not to recognise Henry as heir to the throne, had been wrecked. His life’s work was about to be undone. He had often petitioned Richard in council to recognise Henry as his heir, but Richard had always fobbed him off with some excuse.
⁴²
Now everything was laid bare. Richard never meant to acknowledge Henry, rather he intended to get rid of him; and he did not care if he had to commit a gross injustice to do so.

Henry went with his father to Nuneaton, where the king was staying, but soon after their arrival the king departed for Leicester.
⁴³
It seems probable that they tried to convince Richard that he was being unjust, that Henry did not deserve to be banished, but Richard refused to change his mind. Perhaps he believed John had only reported the conversation between Mowbray and Henry in order to stir up trouble, and, by apportioning the treason, sought to answer John’s implied criticism that he, Richard, had ordered the death of Gloucester. Either way, he stuck to his decision. Nor was Henry’s sentence commuted from ten years to six, as Shakespeare claims.
⁴⁴
Henry and Mowbray were told to say farewell to the court at Windsor on 3 October, and then to depart, Henry to go via Dover to France or Spain for ten years, and Mowbray from an east coast port, to Germany or the Mediterranean, for life.

It is in the length of time that the desperation of Henry’s situation becomes clear. Some writers have suggested that he did not mind being
banished, as it allowed him to get out of England again and visit people, as he had so enjoyed doing in the early 1390s. Such writers are lacking in sensitivity to the facts and sympathy for the man. Ten years was ten times the duration of his journey to Jerusalem via Prussia and back again. It was more time than he could have spent constructively travelling, especially as he had a reduced income of just £2,000 to spend (less than half of his expenditure on his travels in 1392–3). More importantly, it meant that he would never see his beloved father again. He would not see his children grow up. They had already lost their mother; it seemed they were now to lose their father too. Richard, who had himself lost his father at a young age, and who had no children of his own, had no regard for such things. Henry, it seems, did. We may read of him buying two ABC grammar books for his daughters in this year, a sure sign that he wanted them to learn to read and eventually to be as well educated as their mother had been.
⁴⁵
Looking through his most recent New Year present lists, we may read the name of one of his sons, Thomas, high up in the list of recipients.
⁴⁶
There too we may read of Henry’s presents for his beloved father, stepmother and sister, the duchess of Exeter. Henry was losing not only his immediate family but a great number of supportive kin, and many more friends, many of whom would be dead within ten years.

Another point we need to remember is that the very fact of banishment would have wholly changed Henry’s attitude to travel. How could he show his face in a foreign court, after he had been banished for a supposedly traitorous act? Richard claimed this had been agreed in parliament, and even though this was a lie, foreign potentates were going to judge Henry’s character by the favour his king showed him, not the justness of his case. The more he thought about his position, the more awful it must have seemed. All he had was £2,000 a year and the prospect of living in exile in France, at his half-sister’s court in Castile, or his eldest sister’s court in Portugal.

Henry and his father travelled to Windsor to see the king on 3 October. There he received a direct promise from the king that, when his father died, his representatives would be able to take possession of his inheritance on his behalf.
⁴⁷
Then he and his father went on to London. Henry spent a week there making arrangements, paying rewards and giving presents to his faithful followers and friends. He appointed his attorneys on 8 October, and witnessed two of his father’s charters on 9 and 10 October.
⁴⁸
Then it was time to go.

On the day of his departure, he could not but have realised how he had become a hero. Crowds gathered and cheered him: it was said that forty thousand people lined the streets of London when he departed, and
the citizens declared that the nation would not be safe until he returned from exile.
⁴⁹
This was in marked contrast to the king, who was detested in the south-east. Even before the duel, there had been a peasant uprising in Oxfordshire aimed directly at ambushing the king, who was seen as a tyrant and an arch-traitor to the realm.
⁵⁰
By his own admission, Richard was unable to ride around his own realm because of the enmity of the people of London and all the south-eastern counties. Consequently, he had excluded the people of London and sixteen other counties from the general pardon of 1398, and demanded that they each pay large sums to regain his favour.
⁵¹
The fact that they had already paid for this pardon through the lifelong grant of a wool subsidy was of no concern to Richard. If forty thousand is an exaggeration of the number who actually turned out to see Henry go, it is not an exaggeration of the number who despised the king for exiling him.

*

Henry said farewell to his father for the last time on 13 October, at Dover.
⁵²
That day he embarked with his most faithful followers and servants, including the knights Thomas Rempston, John d’Aubridgecourt, Thomas Erpingham, John Tuchet and John Norbury, and his other lifelong followers, Henry Bowet, William Loveney and Robert Challoners.
⁵³
No doubt he had many more men with him than this – the king authorised him to take ‘no more than two hundred persons’ – but few of them could have been of knightly status. His permission to stay in the castle at Calais allowed him to be accompanied by no more than twelve men, and then they could stay there only for a week. His whole company was allowed to stay no more than six weeks at Sangatte.
⁵⁴
Then he was on his own.

According to Froissart, Henry had sent envoys to the French king in Paris before leaving England. King Charles in response sent a messenger saying that he sympathised with Henry’s present disgrace, and invited him to Paris. The count of Ostrevant heard Henry was heading to Paris and sent Fier-a-Bras de Vertain to invite Henry to Hainault. Henry, however, felt an obligation to go to Paris. The dukes of Orléans and Berry met him as he approached the city, and accompanied him a little distance, and then the dukes of Burgundy and Bourbon did the same, and a great number of prelates and barons. The brilliant array accompanied Henry to the Hôtel de St Pol, where he was favourably received by King Charles. So impressed was the king with his charming manners that he allowed Henry to wear the livery of his order, and gave him the use of a house, the Hôtel de Clisson, and offered him financial support.
⁵⁵
But despite this magnificent reception, Froissart notes that Henry

was at times very melancholy, and not without reason, on thus being separated from his family. He was impatient to return, and much vexed that for such a frivolous cause he should be banished from England, and from his four promising sons and two daughters. [He] frequently dined with the king, the duke of Orléans and other great lords, who did everything they could to make his time pass agreeably.
⁵⁶

One of the ways in which the French royal family helped him ‘pass the time agreeably’ was to involve him in their attempt to heal the schism in the Church. At that time there were two popes trying to exercise authority. England supported one, France the other. The issue had exercised the greatest minds since the schism had first occurred in 1378. The French royal family joined in the debates, and Henry did too, attending discussions at the University of Paris. Philip, duke of Burgundy, was particularly impressed with Henry’s ability to weigh the theological arguments he heard. ‘Though we have clerics in England who are more subtle in their imaginative suggestions, these here in Paris have the true and sound theology’, Henry remarked to Duke Philip, who afterwards repeated it as if, coming from Henry, the dictum carried special weight.
⁵⁷

The French also tried to brighten Henry’s mood with discussions of his possible marriage to a member of the French royal family. Mary of Berry was proposed, the daughter of the duke of Berry, in whom Henry is supposed to have placed special trust.
⁵⁸
Henry seems to have been very positive about the match. Mary was the same age as him, an attractive widow and of royal blood.
⁵⁹
Her father was the duke who commissioned
Les Très Riches Heures de duc de Berri,
probably the most famous illuminated manuscript of the late middle ages. He was also the younger son of King John II. From the duke’s point of view, the match was an excellent one: his proposed son-in-law or his eldest son was likely to succeed to the throne of England in the event of Richard dying without a male heir. But when Richard heard about the proposed marriage, and was made aware of how favourably Henry was being treated, he instructed John Montagu, earl of Salisbury, to speak to the French king. At Christmas, the earl presented his letters of credence to Charles and spoke to him privately, referring to Henry as a traitor, and urging that no marriage should be contemplated. He then delivered the same message to the duke of Berry. When he had received assurances that the French council had decided to break off the marriage, he hastily returned to England, without seeing Henry.
⁶⁰

According to Froissart, no one broke the news to Henry for a month. It was only when Henry himself sought to proceed with the arrangements that he was told what had happened. Philip, duke of Burgundy, uncle to
the king of France, was charged with delivering the news to him. He chose an unfortunate way to express himself. In the presence of the court, he declared, ‘we cannot think of marrying our cousin to a traitor’.

Henry was appalled. ‘Sir, I am in the presence of my lord the king, and must interrupt your speech, to answer your accusation. I never was, nor ever thought of being, a traitor; and if anyone dares to charge me with treason, I am ready to answer him now, or at whatever time the king may appoint.’

‘No, cousin’, replied the king himself. ‘I do not believe you will find a man in all of France who will challenge your honour. The expression my uncle has used comes from England.’

At this Henry is supposed to have sunk down on his knees and exclaimed, ‘My lord, I believe you. May God preserve all my friends and confound my enemies!’

The king then made Henry rise, ‘Sir, be appeased; this matter will end well. And when you are on good terms with everyone, then we will talk of marriage. But first you must obtain your inheritance, for it will be necessary for you to make provision for your wife.’
⁶¹

Henry, on returning to the Hôtel de Clisson, was exceedingly angry. He was furious with the duplicity of the whole business, and the false charge of treason, and the stain on his character implied by his banishment. The undeserved shame of his exile was appalling and distressing. No one at the French court knew how to treat him. Normally medieval kings did not banish great lords for no reason. Henry was an anomaly in being exiled, and pitiable as a political liability.

It was probably as a result of this humiliation that Henry decided to leave Paris.
⁶²
His friend Boucicaut was planning to undertake another crusade, to help the king of Hungary in his fight against Bayezid. He wrote to his father asking for permission to go with Boucicaut, but John suggested it would be better for him to visit either his sister Philippa, queen of Portugal, or his half-sister, Catalina, queen of Castile.
⁶³
The letters from his father concerned Henry so much that he read them twice over. The knight who had brought them from England watched him, and told him that he should prepare himself for bad news. The physicians and surgeons attending his father had told the knight that John had only a matter of weeks to live.

John fell grievously ill over Christmas, at Leicester Castle. Richard was at Lichfield, a day and a half away. A massive feast was in progress, and jousts continued day and night, culminating on the king’s birthday, Twelfth Night. Richard declared to William Bagot at this time that he would never allow Henry to return to England.
⁶⁴
But despite this bitterness towards Henry, it seems Richard paid a visit to John on his deathbed.

Richard probably saw John in early January.
⁶⁵
In fact, he gave out advance news of his burial between 8 and 19 January while John was still alive.
⁶⁶
The most likely explanation for this seems to be that it was at John’s own request. The announcement of his forthcoming burial would have been outrageous and pointlessly antagonistic if it had been made without his permission, and John’s generous personal bequests to the king are confirmation that he was not angered by it. In addition, the long period of time before the date for the funeral – about two months – and the place of burial would suggest that Richard had prior knowledge of John’s funeral instructions: namely, that his body should remain unembalmed for forty days and that he wanted to be buried in St Paul’s Cathedral, London, alongside his first wife.
⁶⁷
John’s motive in having his funeral announced by the king so far in advance was probably his hope that Henry would be able to make peace with Richard and return from France to attend. Unfortunately, it was not to be.