Authors: Desmond Seward

Henry V as Warlord

Henry V As Warlord

Desmond Seward

This edition first published in 2013 by:

Thistle Publishing
36 Great Smith Street
London
SW1P 3BU

For Michael and Daphne Dormer

Contents

List of Illustrations

I	The Usurpers
II	Prince Henry and Prince Owain
III	‘He Would Usurp the Crown’
IV	‘No Lordship’
V	The English Armada
VI	‘Our Town of Harfleur’
VII	‘That Dreadful Day of Agincourt’
VIII	‘To Teach the Frenchmen Courtesy’
IX	The Fall of Caen
X	The Fall of Rouen
XI	The Norman Conquest – In Reverse
XII	The Murder of John the Fearless
XIII	‘Heir and Regent of France’
XIV	The Fall of Paris 1420
XV	Lancastrian Normandy
XVI	‘Rending of Every Man Throughout the Realm’
XVII	Meaux Falls
XVIII	Lancastrian France
XIX	Death
XX	Epilogue

Glossary

Notes

Bibliography

List of Illustrations

Henry V, from a screen at York Minster begun about 1425. Like the statues of his immediate predecessors on the screen, this is undoubtedly a portrait.

(The Mansell Collection)

Henry V as a youth. From an early sixteenth-century copy of a lost original.

John, Duke of Bedford, kneels before St George, from the
Bedford Books of Hours
c. 1423. The small forked beard makes it highly probable that St George is a portrait of Henry V.

(The British Library)

Thomas Montacute, Earl of Salisbury – Henry’s most formidable commander – with fashionable military haircut. Note his poleaxe.

(The British Library)

Henry V’s father-in-law, King Charles VI of France, with his counsellors.

(François Martin)

Henry V’s brother-in-law the Dauphin, when King Charles VII, as one of the Three Magi. From a miniature by Jean Fouquet.

(Photographie Giraudon)

A room well known to Henry V – the ruins of the dining hall of Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire.

(John Cooke Photography)

The château of Lassay in Maine. Destroyed in 1417 to stop it being used as a base by the English, it was rebuilt in 1458 with cambered walls designed to resist siege artillery of the type used by Henry V.

(S. Mountgarret)

A hunting scene of a sort very well known to Henry V. In the background is his favourite French residence, the castle of Bois-de-Vincennes. From the
Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry
.

(Photographie Giraudon)

Henry V’s official residence in Paris, the Louvre, as it was in his time. From the
Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry
.

(Photographie Giraudon)

Line Illustrations

p. 34 Henry’s seal as Prince of Wales and p. 147 The seal of Queen Catherine. (Sandford, F,
A genealogical history of the kings of England monarchs of Great Britain
, London 1671)

p. 194 Vincennes in 1576, still just as it had been in Henry V’s time. The
donjon
(or keep) within the inner moat is where the king died in 1422. (Jacques Androuet du Cerceaux,
Les Plus Excellents Bastiments de France)
.

Acknowledgements

It was Mr Michael Dormer who first suggested that I write this book. I am most grateful to him.

I am indebted to Count and Countess Pierre de Montalembert, and Count Artus de Montalembert, for valuable information about memories of the Hundred Years War in Normandy and Maine and for permission to reproduce the photograph of their château of Lassaye. I owe special thanks to Susan, Viscountess Mountgarret for help with research, for reading the typescript, for much photography, and for driving me to many sites in France associated with Henry V and his campaigns. I am also indebted to Peter Drummond-Murray of Mastrick for reading the proofs.

In addition I would like to thank the staffs of the British Library and the London Library for help and guidance on innumerable occasions, and also the honorary librarians of Brooks’s, Mr Piers Dixon and Mr John Saumarez Smith.

Chronology

1387	Born at Monmouth on 16 September.
1394	Death of mother.
1398	His father, Bolingbroke, is banished.
1399	Accompanies Richard II to Ireland. Bolingbroke deposes Richard II and ascends throne as Henry IV. Becomes heir to throne and is created Prince of Wales.
1400	Richard II is murdered. Campaigns with father in Scotland. Owain Glyn Dŵr revolts and proclaims himself Prince of Wales. Campaigns with father in Wales.
1402	He and Hotspur recapture Conwy in spring. Campaigns with his father in Wales in autumn.
1403	Appointed King’s Lieutenant on the Marches of Wales. Campaigns in Wales in spring, burning Owain’s houses. Wounded in battle of Shrewsbury against Hotspur on 21 July. Campaigns in Wales in autumn.
1405	Plot to place Earl of March on throne. Archbishop Scrope’s rising is crushed. Franco-Welsh army invades England. Campaigns in Wales in autumn.
1406	Appointed Lieutenant of Wales. Campaigns in Wales in summer. Besieges Aberystwyth. Campaigns with father in Scotland in autumn.
1408	Earl of Northumberland defeated and killed at Bramham Moor. Aberystwyth surrenders.
1409	Harlech surrenders.
1410	Becomes head of the King’s Council during father’s illness.
1411	Father recovers and dismisses him from the Council. English expedition to France to help Burgundians.
1412	English expedition to France to help Armagnacs. Suspected of plotting to depose his father.
1413	Henry IV dies in March and he becomes king.
1414	Lollard rising crushed in London.
1415	Southampton Plot to murder him and place March on throne. Invades Normandy in August. Harfleur surrenders to him in September. Defeats French at Agincourt on 25 October.
1416	Emperor Sigismund visits Henry in England.
1417	Invades Normandy in August. Takes Caen by storm in September.
1418	Captures Falaise in February. Commences siege of Rouen in July.
1419	Rouen surrenders in January – English overrun all Normandy. Negotiations with Duke of Burgundy and French queen in June. Captures Pontoise in July. Duke John of Burgundy murdered by Armagnacs in September. Alliance between England and Burgundy in December.
1420	Treaty of Troyes with Charles VI and Philip of Burgundy – recognised as ‘Heir and Regent of France’. Marries Charles VI’s daughter, Catherine of Valois, in June. Occupies Paris, installing English garrison. Besieges Melun from July till its fall in November.
1421	Spends January in Normandy. Returns to England with Catherine in February. Duke of Clarence defeated and killed by French at Baugé. Returns to France in June and relieves English at Paris. Commences siege of Meaux in August. Birth of his son, the future Henry VI.
1422	Continues siege of Meaux which surrenders in May. Falls seriously ill in June. Dies at Vincennes on 31 August.

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