The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's Self-Made King (72 page)

Henry’s second great seal is acknowledged as one of the two most magnificent royal seals from medieval England (the other being Edward III's Brétigny seal).

This exquisite enamelled gold swan livery badge was found in Dunstable in 1965. Henry’s own accounts for 1391-2 mention him having just such an enamelled gold swan of his own.

This spectacular crown was originally made in Paris about 1380. It probably came to England with Anne of Bohemia, on her marriage to Richard II. Henry gave it to his daughter, Blanche, when she left England to marry Louis of the Rhine in 1402.

The coronation of Henry’s queen, Joan of Navarre, in Westminster Abbey on 26 February 1403.

Henry’s effigy, in Canterbury Cathedral, is the best likeness we have of him, and the benchmark for assessing all other representations shown of the king. His widow, Queen Joan, lies beside him.

Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, shown here preaching in 1400, was Henry’s cousin, lifelong supporter and probably his closest friend.

Battlefield Church, near Shrewsbury, marks the site of Henry’s great victory of 1403. The figure above the chancel window represents Henry in armour.

Lancaster Castle gatehouse was Henry’s sole major secular building project. Ironically, today it is named after his father, John of Gaunt.

NOTES

Short titles or abbreviations in the notes are fully described in the select bibliography. All manuscript references relate to documents in The National Archives (TNA) unless otherwise stated. All places of publication are London unless otherwise stated.

Author’s Note

  
1
. Goodman,
John of Gaunt,
p. 67.

Introduction

  
1
.
CH,
iii, p. 7.

  
2
.
LK,
pp. 6–7.

  
3
. Manning (ed.),
Life and Raigne of King Henrie IIII,
p. 19.

  
4
.
CH,
iii, p. 9.

  
5
.
CH,
iii, p. 5.

  
6
.
CH,
iii, p. 74.

  
7
. Ramsay,
Lancaster and York,
i, p. 142.

  
8
.
CH,
iii, p. 74.

  
9
. Edward V – king for just two months – is the only king to have been the subject of just one biographical study, but he was not crowned. Nor did he hold a parliament. At the time of writing, Henry is the subject of Kirby’s book, and his life up to 1399 is the subject of Mary Bruce’s,
The Usurper King.
Every other post-Conquest king of England has been the subject of at least two serious biographies.

10
. Kirby, p. 42.

11
.
LK,
p. 7.

12
.
LK,
p. 20.

13
.
LK,
p. 133.

14
.
Henry IV
by Bryan Bevan (1994) has little literary merit and less historical understanding. The other,
The Usurper King
by Mary Bruce (1986) is much better but it deals only with Henry’s life up to 1399. Bruce rarely strays from traditional assumptions about Henry and Richard, quick to repeat post-Shakespearian orthodox judgements against him for his ‘usurpation’ and slow to question the traditional, more sympathetic view of Richard II.

15
. Chrimes, Ross & Griffiths (eds),
Fifteenth-Century England,
xii.

16
. Since writing this I have heard from Professor Anthony Tuck that he has recently completed a political biography of Henry IV.

17
. This statement is based on the assumption that Henry I had no part in the death
of William II, and that John’s claim to take precedence over his nephew, Arthur, was lawful.

18
. Eric Homberger,
Times Higher Education Supplement,
9 October 1987, p. 11, quoted in
CB,
v. The McFarlane quotation following this comes from the same source.

19
. The quotation comes from Philip K. Wilson,
Surgery, Skin and Syphilis: Daniel Turner’s London (1667–1741),
Clio Medica 54 (Amsterdam, 1999), p. 5, quoting Raphael Samuel,
Theatres of Memory 1: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture
(1994), p. 4.

20
. The quotation comes from P. A. Johnson,
Duke Richard of York
(Oxford, 1988), preface page. It is reminiscent of McFarlane’s own ‘the formal records alone survive; behind them lies a tangle of human motives … and these are not revealed.’
CB,
v.

21
. ‘The Limits of Medieval Biography’, conference at the University of Exeter, July 2003. This ‘conclusion’ is drawn from my notes of the paper delivered by the keynote speaker (Professor Pauline Stafford), which was endorsed by almost all those who took part.

1:
The Hatch and Brood of Time

  
1
.
KC,
p. 209.

  
2
.
SAC,
p. 419.

  
3
.
EHD,
p. 132.

  
4
. Saul, p. 70.

  
5
.
SAC,
p. 431; see
ibid.,
p. 419, for the heat of the day and the drinking.

  
6
.
KC,
p. 211, says two hundred. Walsingham, however, says six hundred men-at-arms and six hundred archers. See
SAC,
p. 423.

  
7
.
EHD,
p. 135; Saul, p. 68.

  
8
.
SAC,
p. 425.

  
9
. This specific reference dates from many years later. See Kirby, p. 19. For references to Ferrour as retained in the king’s service, see
CPR 1377–81,
pp. 126, 586.

10
.
EHD,
p. 135. See Saul, p. 65, n. 39.

11
. Dunn,
Great Rising,
p. 102.

12
. See Appendix One.

13
. For more on Richard II’s view of the past, see Ormrod, ‘Richard II’s Sense of English History’.

14
. Smallwood, ‘Prophecy of the Six Kings’. For an early version, prior to the revised text written in the
Brut
(written probably on an annual basis up to 1333), see Taylor,
Political Prophecy,
pp. 160–64.

15
. These elements of the prophecy are taken from the transcript of British Library, Harley 746 in Taylor,
Political Prophecy,
pp. 160–64, not the later version
(c.
1333) in
Brut,
i, pp. 72–6

16
.
Brut,
i, p. 75.

17
.
Froissart,
ii, pp. 678, 709. Because of the timing of this anecdote, it seems probable that Burghersh was blaming the eventual rule of the lamb on the immorality of the woman whom the prince had married, Richard II’s mother. Either the lamb was a consequence of the union, or the prince would be judged for marrying an immoral woman.