Descent into Madness: the Early Reign of Henry VI

A Monkish King – John of Bedford vs. the Dauphin of France – The Battle of Cravant – The Battle of La Brossiniere – The Battle of Verneuil – The Height of English Power in France – Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans – Orleans & Patay – Charles VII Crowned at Rheims – The Burning of a Witch – The Burgundian Alliance Collapses – A Divided Country – The Death of Suffolk – The Battle of Formigny – Cade’s Rebellion – The Battle of Castillon – The End of the Hundred Years’ War – A King Gone Mad – “Rise, Richard of York!”

Nine-month-old son of Henry V ascended the throne of England in 1422, and when his maternal grandfather King Charles VI of France died a month later, he became King of France as well. Because he was an infant, the English government fell on the shoulders of his uncles John, Duke of Bedford, and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. These brothers of the late king were tasked with the governance of the realm, each to his own sphere: Duke Gloucester would be Regent in England, and Duke Bedford would carry on the war with France. Though Henry V had conquered not only Paris but the French throne, the disinherited Dauphin Charles led a fierce resistance. Central France remained in the hands of those who were distant from the battlefields and secure in their loyalty to a French France, and Bedford’s main task was to subdue those hostile territories and bring the Dauphin to heel. As the infant king grew into a boy, the war in France soured, and the Dauphin began to regain ground. By the time Henry was able to take the reigns of government, he leaned towards peace rather than war with France, and his cabinet managed to find peace but at the cost of all occupied French territories minus Calais and the Channel Islands. The pinnacle of English greatness in France came to a screeching and final halt with the reign of the conqueror’s fragile son. This loss of English power and prestige, coupled with the loss of revenues from conquered French lands and thousands of career soldiers suddenly unemployed, wouldn’t make him popular. Many Englishmen would be itching for a new king, a better king, a king who would be like the famous kings of centuries past—and they would be willing to practice violence to achieve it. 

The English hoped that Henry V’s son would be a man after his father’s heart, but in many ways he was the negative image of his father, unconcerned with warfare and focused on piety. He cared for only one thing, his devotion to God, and this rendered his reign impotent. As the Bishop of St. Albans from 1452-1465 tells us, “Henry was his mother’s stupid offspring, not his father’s, a son greatly degenerated from his father, who did not cultivate the art of war… [He was] a mild spoken, pious king, but half-witted in affairs of state.” A modern historian echoes this medieval sentiment, writing that Henry VI “displayed qualities that would have done credit to a monk, but not to a Medieval King. He was gentle, naïve, chaste, prudish and pious, and constantly engaged in meditation and prayer.” He didn’t just act like a monk; he dressed like one, too. It was his custom to wear a long and solemn gown with a rolled hood, over which he wore a black coat that reached below his knees. He wore simple black shoes or boots, deigning not to wear any shoes with pointed toes (which was the secular style at the time). When custom dictated he wear his crown, he atoned for the act by donning an uncomfortable, scratchy, and itching hair shirt beneath his clothes. He attended worship two to three times a day and complained that the duties of governing interrupted him from his devotions. His court was far more liberal than he liked, and he distanced himself from women due to his harsh views on sex and nudity. When some bare-breasted dancers began a show for the king, he averted his eyes and fled into his chamber, muttering, “Shame, shame…” He encouraged his younger visitors to pursue virtue and eschew evil, and he spent his leisure time reading the scriptures and old histories. When he and his court entered the sanctuary, he ordered his courtiers to enter such sacred space absent swords or spears; and then he ordered that they be silent rather than engaging in conversation with those around them. Church services, which brought the king’s court all into one place, provided a window of opportunity for political maneuvering—but mixing Secular and Sacred was unthinkable to the king. He encouraged his young visitors to pursue virtue and eschew evil, and he took pride in founding two colleges devoted to higher learning: Eton College, which gave free education to seventy up-and-coming scholars, was founded in 1440, and the very next year King’s College at Cambridge opened its doors to a handful of poor scholars (it turned out to be pretty popular). 

His generosity showed itself at his table: he and his court ate small portions and insisted leftovers be given to the poor. These overtures to the less fortunate were made repugnant by Henry’s giving spirit run wild, for his unshackled generosity with both the royal treasury and English justice meant higher taxes on the poor and a dreadful fear that justice in everyday courts might not be served.  In the first instance his unrelenting remissions of fines and penalties squeezed the exchequer, for much of royal revenue (then as today) relied on monetary payments from those convicted by the state. In the second instance, Henry made it a point to spare the lives of not just criminals but also traitors, and in his “forgiving spirit” run amuck, he even pardoned nobles who traitorously—and treasonously—conspired against him. Instead of nipping rebellious buds at the root, he allowed a treasonous spirit to settle and burn in the hearts of those who had a better pedigree to the throne. He detested bloodshed in all its forms, and on a road outside St. Albans he had a rude awakening to England’s barbaric punishments and practices. The disemboweling of criminals was a much-loved English past-time, bringing whole neighborhoods and communities together, but Henry would have none of it. He insisted that executions be more humane, not to mention seemly, and he loathed how often the bodies of criminals were dishonored. It was on the road outside St. Albans that he saw a quarter of a man who had been impaled for treason. Once executed, the criminal’s body had been sawed apart and pieces sent throughout the troubled areas, a warning to anyone who would find some sort of inspiration in the traitor’s martyrdom. Henry averted his eyes at the sight, shouting, “Take it away! Take it away! I will have no man so cruelly treated for my account!” How could people rest easy when not only their taxes but also government-sponsored injustice were on the rise? 

Henry VI’s impotence at government led to a tense and often fractured state, the perfect breeding ground not just for treason but for an unrestrained civil war. Into this volatile mixture came one of the most headstrong and ruthless women of the late medieval age: Margaret of Anjou. Had Henry been less pious and more manly, perhaps civil war could’ve been avoided; when his domineering wife began manipulating the government (she was French, did we mention that?), civil war crept closer. All hope of diplomatic resolutions were lost when the heirless king went bat-shit crazy, opening the door for the man who would swing the hammer blow on a nation ready to implode… But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. 

Years before it became apparent that Henry VI would not be like his father, as people hoped, the infant’s king’s uncle John, Duke of Bedford, the Regent of France, carried on Henry V’s legacy and chewed away at the Dauphin’s insurrection. Bedford’s directives came straight from the late king, for whom keeping the throne and finishing the subjection of the Dauphin and his Armagnac supporters was a paramount concern. Bedford was royally tasked with forcing all of France to recognize the recent Treaty of Troyes and, to this effect, the Burgundian Alliance was to be preserved by any means necessary. Losing the support of the Burgundians would leave the English garrisons scattered across hostile territory. Furthermore, the most high-ranking prisoners from the war (notably the Duke of Orleans) were to remain in chains until the infant king came of age, and no treaty could be made with the Dauphin that didn’t establish Normandy forevermore as an English possession. 

The war in central France was a toss-up the year after the conquering king died: the English were victorious at the Battle of Cravant on the Yonne River, but the French carried the day at the Battle of La Brossiniere. On the eve of the Battle of Cravant (fought on 31 July 1423), the French and English forces eyed each other across the waist-deep water of the Yonne River. The Dauphin’s French army, under the command of Sir John Stewart, the Earl of Buchan, and supplemented with a large contingent of Scottish allies, numbered double the Earl of Salisbury’s army and their Burgundian allies. The Scottish archers opened fire on the English across the river, and Salisbury replied with arrows from 1000 longbowmen, Burgundian crossbowmen, and withering fire from forty veuglaires (light artillery pieces). The hail of arrows and artillery rendered the French formations disordered, and Salisbury, a veteran of Harfleur and Agincourt, seized the opportunity and led an assault across the river, taking his men-at-arms through the waist-deep water as longbowmen provided covering fire. Another English force crossed a nearby narrow bridge and divided the Dauphin’s army. The French fell back, but the Scottish allies held their ground—and on that ground they died. 3000 Scottish soldiers died at the bridgehead and along the riverbank, and 2000 prisoners were taken, including the French leaders; Salisbury’s forces only lost around 1600 men. 

England’s victory at Cravant was countered by France’s victory at the Battle of La Brossiniere (26 September 1423). In September the enigmatic John de la Pole of England led a chevauchee out of Normandy; his 2000 soldiers and 800 archers cut a swath through Maine and Anjou as they rooted out Dauphin supporters. His army became laden down by loot, which included a herd of 1200 cows and numerous hostages, before he turned back towards friendly territory in Normandy. A French army of around 6000 shadowed de la Pole, and they set a trap for the English at the chemin gravelais, an ancient road that connected Anjou and Normandy. When the trap was sprung, the English were not arrayed for battle but in marching order, guarding their baggage train burdened with loot. As the French ambushers revealed themselves, de la Pole’s men acted quickly: they drove palings into the ground to prevent against cavalry charges, and the infantry moved to the front as the convoy of wagons were dispatched to the rear. The French attacked the English in the flank, and the resulting hand-to-hand combat was a butchery against the English. Between 1200-1400 English soldiers were killed, and when the line of march broke, another two to three thousand were slain during the French pursuit. Only 120 of John de la Pole’s men escaped death or capture; de la Pole suffered the latter.

Fortune favored the English the next campaign season, and Bedford became a symbol of the late beloved king at the Battle of Verneuil (17 August 1424), popularly known as the “second Agincourt.” When Duke Bedford laid siege to the Dauphin stronghold of Ivry, a Franco-Scottish army marched to relieve the beleaguered fortress; but before they could arrive, Ivry surrendered to the Duke. The Franco-Scots decided to attack English strongholds on the Norman border, and their first target would be the lightly-garrisoned Verneuil. The town was recaptured by a simple ruse: a party of Scots, leading some of their fellow countrymen as prisoners, approached the town’s gates. They pretended to be English soldiers and claimed that Bedford had defeated the Franco-Scots in battle. Eager for news and trusting the disguised Scotsmen, the paltry garrison opened the gates—and the Scots made quick work of them. On 15 August Bedford received word of Verneuil’s capture, and he immediately set off to recapture the town. He neared Verneuil just two days later. The French wanted to abandon the town, but their Scottish allies convinced them to make a stand. The Franco-Scots deployed a mile north of the town on an open plain cut through by a road. The French arrayed themselves into a division on the left side of the road and would be supported by Milanese cavalry; the Scots were on the right and supported by Lombard cavalry. Though the Franco-Scottish army was under a single commander, the second-tiered leaders over the French and Scots respectively disavowed cooperation. This would be their downfall. 

Emerging from the woods, Bedford organized his men into two divisions to match the layout of the enemy. As was custom, men-at-arms were situated in the center with archers in the wings and out front. A strong reserve of 2000 archers guarded the baggage train. Bedford would command the division facing the French; the Earl of Salisbury, hero from the Battle of Cravant, would lead the fight against the Scots under the Earl of Buchan, whom he had bested at Cravant (Buchan had been wounded in the eye, captured, and then ransomed). The armies, assembled by dawn, stared each other down across the field, each wanting the other to attack. Bedford sent a herald to the Earl of Douglas, asking for terms of battle; Douglas replied that the Scots would neither give nor receive any quarter. At 4PM Bedford ordered his men to advance across the field. As they plodded forward, the Dauphin’s allied Milanese cavalry cut through the archers on Bedford’s right. Once Bedford’s troops were within arrow range, he ordered a halt and directed the archers to drive their palings into the ground; but because the ground had been baked under the summer sun, the archers wrestled to get the stakes implanted. The French opposite them, inspired by the struggling longbowmen and acting out-of-sync with the Scots on the opposite side of the road, charged forward. 

The Battle of Verneuil

The Scots didn’t follow, though the Lombard cavalry pushed through the archers on Bedford’s right. A number of the English panicked and fled before Bedford could reassert order (a Captain Young, leading half a thousand men, would later be found guilty of cowardice for retreating and would be drawn and quartered as punishment). Bedford’s men-at-arms charged into the fray against the oncoming French, at which point the Scots under Buchan advanced on the English division under Salisbury. The Lombard cavalry swept around the English forces and attacked the baggage train. The hottest part of the battle centered on the French and English men-at-arms; historian Desmund Seward notes the melee was “a hand-to-hand combat whose ferocity astounded even contemporaries.” A veteran of the battle reported how “the blood of the dead spread on the field and that of the wounded ran in great streams all over the earth.” For forty-five minutes Frenchmen and Englishmen “stabbed, hacked and cut each other down on the field of Verneuil without either side gaining any advantage in what is generally considered to be one of the most fiercely fought battles of the entire war.” Bedford wielded a two-handed pole-axe and cut down many Frenchmen; a veteran recounted how Bedford “reached no one whom he did not fell.” Seward reports that Bedford’s battle-axe “…smashed open an expensive armor like a modern tin can, the body underneath being crushed and mangled before even the blade sank in.” The French began to give ground, and then they broke, high-tailing it back towards Verneuil. Bedford’s men gave chase, and many French soldiers drowned in Verneuil’s moat as they tried to force their way through the narrow gates.

All the while Salisbury remained engaged with the Scots. Buchan fought like a dog, desperate to get vengeance on the earl who had bested him at Cravant. Bedford called his men off the pursuit of the routing French and directed them to support the melee against Buchan and Douglas. The reserve, which had fought against the Lombard cavalry when they raided the baggage train, were fired up and hurried to Salisbury’s aid, charging the unsupported Scottish right wing. Bedford’s winded and blood-soaked soldiers pushed against the Scottish right flank, and the Scots were virtually surrounded. They fought to the death, as the Earl of Douglas had prophesied. Any Scots attempting to surrender were cut down, and the Battle of Verneuil ended only when the very last Scottish soldier was slain. Bedford so decimated Scottish troops allied to the Dauphin that The Army of Scotland never again set foot in France (though disassociated Scots continued to fight with the Dauphin against their archenemy). 

It’s been estimated that the Franco-Scottish army suffered around 6500 casualties, 4000 of those being the Scots who were cut to pieces on the field. For her part England lost only around 1600, including “two men-at-arms and a very few archers.” So many Armagnac leaders were slain on the field that the Dauphins’ resistance was, for the time being at least, crippled. Bedford seized on his victory and carved a swath through the Dauphin’s fragile territory. It was under Bedford that English power in France reached its peak: English-controlled France stretched from the Channel inland to the Loire (with the exceptions of Orleans and Angers), and from Burgundy in the east to Brittany in the west. Bedford’s conquests were glorious, but they came with a price: the victory stretched not only England’s resources but also her armies. Wider swathes of territory were overseen by smaller garrisons, which decreased English control across the board. The Dauphin and his Armagnacs, despite the crippling blow at Verneuil, remained firm in their resistance, and as English control wavered, their ranks grew stronger. 

Joan of Arc

From his capital at Bourges, the Dauphin led an expedition across the Loire River. The English drove his forces back and systematically took the towns and fortresses along the Loire that had remained loyal to him. By 1428 they were laying siege to one of the Dauphin’s most loyal (and defensible) strongholds. Whoever possessed the city of Orleans commanded the Loire Valley; Bedford knew that if Orleans were captured, the Dauphin’s cause would be made all the more desperate. But an English Orleans was not to be. The tide turned against the English when a spirited peasant girl, claiming to be in cahoots with God, set her sights on relieving besieged Orleans. To this day Joan of Arc is regarded not only as the savior of the Valois Dynasty but also the savior of France, and in 1920 the Catholic Church made her a saint. This peasant girl heard heavenly voices ordering her to save France, and she persuaded a number of royal officials, and finally the Dauphin himself, of the authenticity of her divine mission. She was given command of an army, and in 1429 she marched to Orleans. The city was holding out against the English besiegers. Orleans had more cannon than the English, and French artillery killed Salisbury, who had been directing the siege. The English had built a ring of small fortresses around the city, concentrated in areas where the French could ferry supplies behind the walls. Joan of Arc raised the morale of the French troops and led an attack on these English redoubts, forcing them lift the siege. Inspired by the “Maid of Orleans,” the French took numerous English strong points on the Loire and broke through English archers at the Battle of Patay in June 1429. Though Joan of Arc is often credited as the architect of the victory of Patay, the fact is that she and her forces were hardly present at the battle: as the battle opened, the French vanguard burned through the English longbowmen and Joan and her troops hurried to catch up. By the time they reached the field of battle, a French victory had been grasped. 

These strings of victories helped Joan convince the Dauphin to march to Rheims to be crowned Charles VII. Though a number of cities opened to the Dauphin on his parade towards the traditional coronation site for French kings, Paris remained in English hands and was as well guarded against the French as Orleans had been against the English. The Dauphin’s coronation as King Charles VII of France won him broad support as the embodiment of French royal sentiment, and patriotic fervor burned in the hearts of those who had toiled under English rule. Joan of Arc’s career came to a swift end at the siege of Compiegne, during which a number of Burgundians allied to the English captured her and sent her in chains to the English. Joan was tried by an ecclesiastical court headed by the pro-English Pierre Cauchon, and she was executed as a witch on 30 May 1431. Though the English earned themselves a bad reputation by executing her, they really had no other choice. If they didn’t find her guilty of witchcraft, they would be giving credibility to her claim that God was fighting on the side of the French. English losses at Orleans, Patay, and other recent skirmishes soured the stomachs of the English people, and it wouldn’t help matters for them to fear they were in God’s crosshairs. 

English power in France suffered another blow in 1435: John, Duke of Bedford, died. He had been the only thing keeping the fragile Burgundian Alliance afloat, and his passing marked the alliance’s death-knell. Bedford’s younger brother, the Duke of Gloucester, who had been made Regent of England, was unpopular with the Burgundians. At Bedford’s death, Philip, the Duke of Burgundy, excused himself from the alliance and signed the Treaty of Arras, restoring Paris to Charles VII of France. When King Henry of England, now about a decade and a half old, heard the news, he burst into tears. He could read the times as well as anyone: England’s days of dominance in France were coming to an untimely and inglorious end. His father’s glories were unraveling under his watch, and there was nothing he could do to stem the tide. 

For the next decade and a half, the tide of war turned steep against the English, and discontent blossomed at home. Disgruntlement on the home front would be marshaled behind the Duke of Gloucester (Regent of England during Henry’s minority) and Richard, Duke of York. When Henry assumed royal power in 1442, it wasn’t surprising that he sided with the party opposing continued war in France. Henry’s henchmen—Cardinal Beaufort and the Duke of Suffolk—wanted diplomatic peace at all costs; the cost of the war was skyrocketing, and the French armies had become something out of English children’s nightmares. England’s dominance on the battlefield was eclipsed by a professional French soldiery armed with the finest gunpowder artillery (and tactics) the west had ever seen. English possessions in France weren’t being nibbled away; they were straight up dissolving as, time and again, the English, absent the brilliance of Bedford, were bested on the battlefield. Beaufort and Suffolk hoped to hammer out a peace with the French that would enable them to save Aquitaine and Normandy. If war dragged on, they feared, England’s men would wither under the French onslaught, and everything would be lost; better to secure a future in France now, no matter the cost. The two warring nations made a series of truces as they tried to stay on top of the war. Charles VII used these truces as “breathing room” to reorganize his armies and centralize his government, but Henry and his supporters sought to fashion a number of permanent treaties. France was focused on taking back her rightful land by force; England hoped to capitalize on the past and hoped the French wouldn’t notice. 

Margaret of Anjou

Hoping to cool tempers between the two countries, Beaufort and Suffolk in 1445 managed to hammer out a marriage between Henry VI and the French-born Margaret of Anjou. Margaret was a niece-by-marriage to Charles VII and the daughter of Rene, the Duke of Anjou and King of Jerusalem (the latter if in name only). Much of English society hated the marriage (for marriages, if anything, were political statements). Henry was cozying up to the enemy, giving away Maine and Anjou in the process, and in the eyes of many it rendered the last generations of war a waste. Remember not only that France was England’s most longtime and infamous enemy; remember, too, that the wars with France had been going on since the days of Edward III. It’d been going on for a hundred years (the longest war for the United States is the ongoing War in Afghanistan, which is in its sixteenth year; the war with France lasted six times longer). Though the marriage inflamed widespread unhappiness, Beaufort and Suffolk thought it was the most prudent course for England’s survival in France. The 16-year-old Margaret entered the royal house meekly—but she soon became a dragon. Stubborn, strong-willed, and defiant in the face of all who stood in her way, Margaret dominated her pious husband whose devotion to sacrament far outweighed any interest in ruling. With a savvy political mind and a good dose of ingenuity, she manipulated her husband and used him as a ladder for her own political ambitions.  

Spearheading discontent towards Henry’s cabinet and the spineless overtures being made to France lie the Duke of Gloucester and Richard, Duke of York, who stood next in line to the throne. Both Henry’s supporters and the opposition hit a milestone year in 1447 when their respective leaders, Gloucester and Beaufort, died. Beaufort had enjoyed the privileged ear of the king, and Suffolk filled the vacancy. Richard, Duke of York, became a cornerstone of the opposition movement. He waited for the right moment to strike, and for him 1449 was a golden year. The French king, embracing Fabian tactics like the legendary du Guesclin, seized town after town. Brittany fell to his armies, and Rouen—where Joan of Arc had been burned at the stake as a witch—came back under French rule. The year was bad across the Channel, too—at least for Suffolk. It came out that Suffolk had been secretly conniving with the enemy and helping them plan on invasion of England, and the end of the year saw the noose tightening around his neck. “Treason” was the talk of the town and in the taverns. In January 1450 Suffolk was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower. The Commons of Parliament impeached him, but it was Henry’s intervention that saved his neck (for a time). Suffolk’s punishment would be banishment for five years, but once his ship set sail for Calais, Suffolk would never again touch dry land (at least while alive). The ship was intercepted by the Nicholas of the Tower, Suffolk was seized, and he was forced to endure a hasty mock trial. The verdict was treason and the sentence death: they cut off his head at the gunwales, and his body later washed up on the beach near Dover. With Suffolk dead, the Duke of York rose to prominence before the people. 

The loss of Suffolk was just the beginning of Henry’s awful year: the war on the Continent continued to sour, and it was encroaching on England. The coastal regions of Kent and Sussex suffered French raiders, and Henry’s order to emplace warning beacons along the coastline convinced people that a French invasion was likely. In April news reached England of yet another disastrous defeat on the Continent: the French defeated the English at the Battle of Formigny, and the gates to Normandy opened to the French conquerors. The loss of Normandy made the people of England riotous. Henry and his cabinet were failing, and riots broke out across England. Anger and discontent found an outlet in a man named John (or Jack) Cade. Likely an Irishman by birth, Cade had fled England after murdering someone and wound up fighting against the French. He had returned to England and settled down in Kent, and like most people of his standing, he loathed the taxes that were increasingly being raised to pay for the humiliating clubbing they were receiving in France. The revelation that Henry’s leading cabinet member had been conniving with the French solidified suspicions that the king’s cabinet was treasonous against England. Henry, obsessed with his piety, had left the government in the hands of greedy, misguided men. The loss of Normandy was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. As societal emotions flared and riots broke out across the nation, Cade became the centerpiece of resolute unrest. When Suffolk’s headless body washed up on the shores of Kent, rumor spread that Henry was planning on punishing Kent for the abominable act. Cade wrote and distributed a manifesto entitled The Complaint of the Poor Commons of Kent that was affirmed not only by commoners but also by many lords and nobles. Cade presented fifteen complaints towards Henry’s government and five demands from said government. The first complaint centered on the situation the people of Kent feared most: reprisals for acts of which they were wholly innocent. Cade called for inquiries into corruption and the removal of corrupt high officials. He charged the king for refusing to impeach his favorites even though they were guilty of treason. Cade alleged that Henry’s cabinet was guilty of extorting the people, rigging elections, and manipulating the king to achieve their own ends. 

Cade had to go to London to present his case, and in May he and his followers set off for the capital city. He dispatched runners to the surrounding counties to raise aid and more manpower. By early June, Cade had assembled 5000 men at Blackheath, just twenty miles southeast of London. These men weren’t so much an army as they were a rabble, consisting mainly of peasants with little or no military experience. There were exceptions, of course: higher-ranking strata of society (artisans, a knight, eighteen squires, and two members of Commons, for starters) partook in the assembly. A number of soldiers fresh off the boats from France joined the fray, bringing their own grievances to bear against London. This rabble marched towards the capital, and reaching Southwark, just south of the Thames, they assembled at the southern part of London Bridge. Cade ordered the ropes of London Bridge to be severed so that the bridge couldn’t be raised against him. He strutted to the London Stone—a wedge of oolitic limestone that likely hailed back to Anglo-Saxon or even Roman times—and struck it with his sword, declaring himself Lord Mayor. He then proceeded to implement tribunals to judge (what the rebels perceived to be) the corrupt officials in the city. The Lord High Treasurer and William Crowmer were convicted of treason and beheaded; their heads were put on pikes and paraded through the city streets before being displayed on London Bridge. While parading, the rebels held the severed heads aloft in such a manner that it appeared they were kissing, a gross insult that carried much more weight then than it would today. 

The Battle of London Bridge

Cade’s presence in the city gave way to chaos as the rabble, despite orders to the contrary, began looting the city. The Londoners who had been sympathetic towards the mob turned against them as they were firmly lodged in their crosshairs. When Cade managed to lead his men back across London Bridge to their headquarters in Southwark, the people of London barricaded the route back into the city. The next day, July 8th, Cade’s rebels tried to push their way back into the city but were met by stiff resistance from the Londoners. The skirmish, called the Battle of London Bridge, lasted until eight the next morning when the exhausted and demoralized rebels hurried back into Southwark. One chronicler puts the death toll at forty Londoners and two hundred rebels killed. Henry hoped to put a stop to the madness by issuing pardons for the aggrieved rebels and instructing them to return home. Cade knew that those rebels whose anger hadn’t been satiated by blood now knew they were no match for London, and his rabble dispersed. Cade joined them but was caught a few days later after a skirmish with the future High Sheriff of Kent, Alexander Iden. Cade suffered mortal wounds in the skirmish and died en-route to London for trial. Cade’s Rebellion—England’s largest domestic uprising in the 15th century—gave witness to the atmosphere of the time and unknowingly prophesied an even more turbulent future with many more severed heads. 

Meanwhile France recaptured Caen, and the next year Bordeaux and Bayonne were transferred back to French hands. The final official blows of the last humiliating phase of the Hundred Years’ War came at the English defeat at the Battle of Castillon in 1453. The Hundred Years’ War, which began with such hope during the reign of Edward III more than a century earlier, came to a humiliating close. Of all of Edward III’s glories and, more poignantly for Henry VI, the glories of his father, all that remained in English hands was the port of Calais and the Channel Islands. Maine and Anjou and Brittany, Aquitaine and Normandy—all of it was gone. Henry’s sanity couldn’t bear the strain of the loss, and in the summer of 1453 he snapped: he developed a physical rash and a frenzied terror, and when it subsided he was left withdrawn, unable to speak or lift his head or even move a muscle in his body. His eyes glazed over, and he was ignorant of all that went on around him. He had to be carefully tended and fed. When his pregnant wife Margaret gave birth to their first son, Edward, at the end of the year, he gave his son a single nonchalant glance. He didn’t even recognize his wife. Royal physicians tried a host of remedies—drugs, baths, bleedings, and purgatives—but nothing worked. The king wouldn’t wash or dress on his own, and it didn’t escape anyone that his symptoms closely resembled those of his maternal grandfather, Charles VI, whose bouts of insanity had earned him the nickname “Charles The Mad.” 

Though historians are generally confident that Henry had inherited some sort of genetic propensity towards madness, his contemporaries could only suspect as much, for the science of genetics was not yet around. The French blamed Charles VI’s insanity from an incident where he suffered a number of sledgehammer blows to his helmet during a tournament, after which he became psychotic and deranged. In 1392 the French king’s hair and fingernails fell out, and he suffered bouts of fever and incoherence. At one point Charles leapt off his horse and killed four of his own bodyguards before he could be restrained; pinned to the ground, he was speechless as his eyes rolled side to side. For the next two days he was in a coma, and when he heard that he had killed four of his own men, he wept. His mental health continued to deteriorate, and when four of his men the next year were burned alive in their costumes during a freak accident at a ball, Charles succumbed to another plague of insanity. A surgeon drilled holes in his skull, hoping to heal him by removing pressure from his brain. After the surgery he made a slight recovery, but he relapsed again two years later. In 1397 he sensed his mind getting cloudy and, acquainted with the symptoms leading to relapse, insisted that his dagger be removed. He didn’t want anymore of his men losing their lives to his blind rage. A number of churchmen and university doctors, believing the king was suffering sorcery, put him through a gauntlet of exorcisms, during which Charles begged to die. His delusions worsened: he claimed that his name was George and denied being a king or having a wife and child; he ran room to room until collapsing from exhaustion; and at one point he was secluded in a dark and shuttered royal apartment, attacking any servants or doctors who dared enter. He smashed the furniture and urinated on his clothes, and in brief moments of clarity, when he beheld his condition, he was filled with shame not only for what he had become but also for the hell through which he was putting his daughters. He went through a period believing he was made of glass and that if people came too near, he would break; he demanded that iron rods be inserted into his clothing to prevent him from breaking. For months in 1405 he refused to change his clothes, bathe, or be shaved; he was infested with lice and covered with rashes. At one point the doctors hoped to startle some sense into him, and they staged a prank: a number of men blackened their faces and hid in the king’s room, and when he entered they all jumped out (presumably shouting “Boo!”). Somehow it worked, and the king agreed to be washed, shaved, and dressed. All was better—for a few weeks. These cycles continued until his death, and now they were showing up in his grandson, Henry VI of England. Henry’s court had reason to be concerned.

Henry VI and his incapacitating sickness

Historians generally believe that a connection exists between the two kings’ separate madness. One of the leading suspects is porphyria, a rare hereditary disease with painful symptoms that seem manifest in the lives of the two men: inflammation of the bowels, painful weaknesses in the limbs, and even the loss of feeling are all symptoms of the disease. Severe attacks can result in visual and auditory disturbances, delirium, and advanced senility. Other suspects include schizophrenia, typhus, or encephalitis. The latter can give rise to impulsive, aggressive behavior. But  no matter the cause of Henry’s illness, the kingdom needed a man behind the wheel during his episodes of madness, which could last months. The kingdom needed a Protector, and that position fell squarely on the shoulders of the Duke of York. With the birth of the Prince of Wales, York’s climb to the throne had become much steeper. If he could not seize the throne by direct succession, his best grasp at it would be in a political coup—and being named Protector was like a gift of gold thrown in his lap. For all his mischief, York never grasped the crown for which he fought; he died in battle in 1460. His son Edward took up his cause, and the Yorkists (as they are known) deposed Henry VI. Edward of York realized his father’s dream, but Henry’s supporters didn’t take their ousting coolly. They put up a spirited fight, but their deposed king became a captured king in 1465. The war between the disinherited Lancasters and the upstart Yorks continued unabated, and in 1470 Henry was again able to take the throne. This was but a blip in his fate, however, and the very next year he lost his throne (for the second time), was imprisoned, and executed. The kingdom, in the eyes of many, was now firmly held by a Pretender to the Throne; but Margaret of Anjou wouldn’t back down. Just because the kingdom wasn’t her husband’s didn’t mean that it wasn’t hers. 

Henry’s madness, and all that would come from it, doesn’t mark the end of his story; rather, it’s when his story steps into another. His madness and York’s ascendancy mark the end of the Era of the Hundred Years’ War and the genesis of a dynastic struggle that would decimate the English nobility. The Wars of the Roses began and ended with upstart Houses: the star-on-the-rise House of York challenged the incumbent House of Lancaster; the House of Lancaster fell, but the House of York’s victory was short-lived. The House of York went the way of its enemy under the swords of Henry Tudor, whose family’s dynasty would mark the end of the medieval era and the beginning of the modern world. 

Henry V & the Conquest of France

A King Forged in War – The Southampton Plot – Henry Invades France – The Siege of Harfleur – The Battle of Agincourt – Chivalry Be Damned – The Western Schism –The Battle of the Seine – The Siege of Rouen – Chivalry Be Damned: Part 2 – The Murder of John the Fearless – Before the Gates of Paris – France Conquered: the Treaty of Troyes – The Bloody Flux, an Infant King, & a Welsh Courier

Henry V was 26 years old when he succeeded his father on 9 April 1413. Henry V has been immortalized in three of Shakespeare’s histories as “a paragon of English spirit and chivalry” (though his actions during the Siege of Rouen hint at a different story). Henry’s fame comes from what he accomplished: he led two successful invasions of France, secured the French throne for England, and made England the strongest nation in Europe. When he took the throne, his mind was already bent towards, and conditioned for, war. He had trained under the fiery Harry Hotspur in the early years of the Welsh revolts, and after fighting against his tutor at the Battle of Shrewsbury (where he took an arrow to the face), he spearheaded his father’s subjection of rebellious Wales. He was trained in war, and particularly adept at medieval sieges, and his greatest ambition was to carry that prowess across the Channel and restore England to the glory of bygone days. 

Upon taking the throne, Henry faced three principal challenges: he needed to restore domestic peace, heal the “Western Schism” in the Catholic Church, and lead England on its recovery of European prestige. Moving to restore peace to a clique-ridden England, Henry had Richard II honorably reinterred at Westminster Abbey, brought Edmund Mortimer into his favor, and restored lands and titles to those families who had lost them during the reign of Richard II. Domestic peace was threatened by a failed Lollard uprising in January 1414; Lollards (followers of John Wycliffe, a forerunner to the 16th century Protestant Reformation) under the leadership of Henry’s old friend John Oldcastle rebelled against the government. Their rebellion itself wasn’t surprising, since they had endured religious suppression since the days of Richard II. Their uprising came to nothing, however, and the rebellion’s collapse marked the end of the Lollards’ blatant political influence. A second rebellion, called the “Southampton Plot,” took place in July 1415 when a cabal developed to overthrow Henry and place Richard II’s heir, Edmund Mortimer, on the throne. Henry’s agents sniffed out the plot, and Henry had Lord Scrope and Richard of York, the Earl of Cambridge, executed for their participation in the plot. In order to bring about Catholic unity during the Western Schism, Henry made overtures to Sigismund, the Holy Roman Empire. Their machinations would culminate in the Council of Constance and the eventual healing of the papal schism. Henry’s main focus after bringing peace to England, however, wasn’t papal unity but a strengthened England. He set his sights on France and resolved to earn a name of much renown. In this he would succeed. 

Henry had a number of reasons for reinitiating war with France. First, it would strengthen popular support for his rule; people love war, and if he were successful, his reign wouldn’t be so fraught with subterfuge and revolt. Second, a successful war would bring loads of money into England, not least of all Henry’s treasury. The acquisition of revenue-rich lands and money made by extortion or by ransoming captured French knights would bring in a pretty penny. Furthermore, a number of Norman lords had promised to gift their lands to Henry when they died; but if France possessed Normandy, those grants would be forfeit. France, as it stood, was in no shape to resist an English onslaught. The country’s nobility had been torn between two competing factions, the Armagnacs and Burgundians, and their rivalry weakened the French monarchy. Making matters worse for the French, their king, Charles VI, was prone to mental illness, and his son the Dauphin looked unpromising. Before launching an invasion of France, Henry needed a pretext for that invasion, and he used French support for the Welsh uprising during his father’s reign as an excuse. He revived the English claim to the French throne and began making demands of France: first he demanded they return Aquitaine to England in fulfillment of the 1360 Treaty of Calais; he then demanded a number of former Angevin territories, namely Normandy, Touraine, and Maine; and then, in a spirit of arrogance, he demanded French territories that the English had never possessed! On top of all this he demanded a 2-million-crown payment as well as Charles VI’s daughter Catherine as his bride. Henry likely never expected the French to agree to these demands, but that may have been the point; Henry salivated at the chance to invade France, and if his demands were too steep, Charles wouldn’t foil his ambitions by agreeing to his terms. As he made these demands, Henry began preparing for the coming invasion: he sought friendship with John the Fearless, the Duke of Burgundy, leader of the Burgundian faction; his navy patrolled the Channel in an effort to deprive France of her maritime trade; he gathered funds for his army via large-scale borrowing and parliamentary taxation; and he aroused the national spirit of patriotism so that the nobles and populace would stand behind the forthcoming invasion. 

The Siege of Harfleur

The invasion would commence at the tail end of summer 1415. Henry’s aim was to bring France to her knees by systematically reducing French strongholds. These captured strongholds would contain permanent English garrisons who could bring the surrounding countryside into submission. Once territory was seized, tax collectors would follow on the heels of the army, extorting the French populace so that the conquered would, ironically, pay for the English victories against them. Henry’s invasion force of around 12,000 men landed in northern France on 13 August 1415, and by the 18th they had laid siege to the port city of Harfleur. A French relief convoy carrying guns, powder, arrows, and crossbows was seized by the English besiegers, and then Henry commenced his bombardment of the city’s walls. Twelve cannons unleashed hell upon the stonework, and Henry readied his men for an assault on the walls; but before the assault could commence, the French commander inside the city promised that he would surrender the city if no help came by the 23rd of September. Henry agreed to the terms, and he and his men bunkered down outside the walls. No help came, and the French garrison surrendered on September 22nd. The captured French knights were released on parole so that they could gather their ransoms, and those townsfolk who refused to swear allegiance to Henry were exiled. The capture of Harfleur was a victory, but nearly a third of Henry’s men had died of dysentery during the month-long siege. Since winter was approaching, Henry knew he would need to solidify his gains and find a place to weather the winter. He decided to move most of his army (around 8500 men) to English-held Calais, from which they could be reinforced and resupplied before the 1416 campaign began. The rest of his army would remain in the smaller port of Harfleur, keeping it under wraps until they, in turn, could be reinforced out of Calais next spring.

On October 8th Henry led his Calais-bound troops out of Harfleur and began the long march through hostile lands towards English-held territory. They weren’t alone: a French army called up by Charles VI during the siege of Harfleur had arrived, and instead of investing Harfleur, they decided to shadow the English march. The French commander, Charles d’Albret, the Constable of France, determined to outmaneuver the English force—which was wildly outnumbered by the French—and destroy them in the French countryside; then he could turn the weight of his army against the ragged English garrison at Harfleur. With this aim, d’Albret mirrored the English as they marched along the River Somme, and it wasn’t long before the English were trapped and outnumbered. They would have no choice but to turn and fight. The night before battle, Henry ordered his men to be silent so as to prevent enemy raids from sniffing them out. Anyone who broke silence, he swore, would have an ear cut off. The next morning, October 25th and the Feast of St. Crispin, he gave a speech before his assembled forces, defending the justness of their cause and bolstering their morale by reminding them of previous glories at Crecy and Poitiers. Some French sources tell us that Henry informed his archers that if they were captured by the French, their captors would cut two fingers off their right hands so that they could never again fire a bow; whether this is apocryphal or historical is unknown, since most captured archers would be outright killed since they were of low means couldn’t fetch a ransom. Shakespeare, in his play Henry V, puts words in Henry’s mouth that have traveled down the ages: “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother…” 

the longbowmen behind their palings

Henry arranged his 1500 men-at-arms and 7000 longbowmen across a 750-yard stretch of a narrow pass between the woods of Tramecourt and Azincourt. He divided his men into three divisions: the vanguard was under the command of the Duke of York, the main body was led by the king himself, and the rearguard fell under Lord Camoys. Sir Thomas Erpingham marshaled the longbowmen. The men-at-arms and knights in plate and mail were stacked shoulder-to-shoulder four deep in the center of the line, perhaps with some archers positioned before them with orders to fall back when the French approached. English and Welsh archers, positioned on the flanks, drove wooden palings (or stakes) into the ground so as to force enemy cavalry to veer off. The opposing French forces greatly outnumbered those of Henry: one chronicler puts French numbers at 8000 men-at-arms, 4000 archers, 1500 crossbowmen, and two wings of cavalry numbering 600 and 800 respectively. Counting the feudally-raised peasantry in the wake of the professional soldiers, the French likely numbered anywhere between 30-50,000. The commander of the force, the Constable d’Albret, divided his army into three lines (or “battles”). D’Albret would command the first line of men-at-arms, with attached cavalry wings leading the charge. The second line fell to the Dukes of Bar and Alencon and the Count of Nevers; the third was put under the command of the Counts of Dammartin and Fauconberg. The inexperienced knights and men-at-arms saw the English, especially the longbowmen, as inferior. They burned in their hearts to throw their weight against their outnumbered opponent, to avenge the loss of Harfleur and to put the marauding English in their place. They also thought of the ransoms they could bag if they captured Henry and his entourage. They begged to be put in the vanguard of the coming battle despite the vehement warnings of the more seasoned soldiers who knew just how lethal English archers could be.

a rain of steel

The two sides stared across the open land between the two forests for several hours. The Constable was waiting for more contingents of his army to catch up, and Henry could do nothing but wait for the inevitable. His men were running low on food, exhausted from marching 260 miles from Harfleur, and to make matters worse, dysentery was making its rounds. Soldiers dressed in plate and mail defecated in their armor and sweated under the autumn sun, miserable and half hoping to die just to be put out of their misery. The Constable, giving in to the eagerness of his professional troops, decided to initiate the battle before reinforcements could join. The French cavalry charged towards the longbowmen behind their palings, determined to knock them out of the game so that the French men-at-arms, outnumbering their English counterparts at least six-to-one, could tear through the English swordsmen like a scythe through wheat. But the longbowmen stood firm, and their arrows did their work. They let loose volley after volley. French horses tumbled, riddled with arrows, throwing knights this way and that. Fallen knights were stampeded by the horsemen galloping behind. The shrieks of dying horses and the moans of knights crushed beneath their armor filled the air. Dying horses and knights struggling in the mud littered the field. The cavalry charge faltered before it could reach the hedge of stakes, and the horsemen turned and retreated, charging back across the field spiked with arrows. Knights who had been thrown from their horses and who had somehow survived the charge now had to face the panicked charge back towards their own lines. More men were stampeded in the retreat, the arrows continued to fall, and the horses’ hooves churned up the muddied battlefield. The panicked horses cut through the French infantry who had been coming up behind them. The infantry managed to wither the stampeding horses and continued their steady march towards the English men-at-arms readying themselves to defend every inch of ground. And the arrows kept falling.

The thick mud, churned like butter, would prove fatal t the advaning French soldiers. A witness to the event, a French monk of St. Denis, records that the men-at-arms advanced under “a terrifying hail of arrow shot,” and as they advanced through this rain of steel they had to close their visors and lower their heads not only to protect themselves from arrows but also to keep their eyes on their feet (it made it easier to dodge fallen horses and stricken knights). Mud clung to their armor, which already weighed about 50 pounds, slowing them to a trot. Those who made it to the English knights and men-at-arms managed to push the enemy a few steps back, but the longbowmen on the wings fired point-blank into the flanks of the French. The French men-at-arms were so exhausted and encumbered by mud and armor that if they slipped and fell in the mud, it would be nigh impossible to get up; those who didn’t drown in the mud seeping into their helmets were easy prey for the enemy, especially the lightly-padded and quick-footed longbowmen who could rush forward and thrust their “mercy knives” through the downed enemy’s visors. 

the Agincourt bottleneck

Struggling both to see and breathe in closed helmets, and surrounded by the dead and almost dead, French morale faltered. The next French line pushed through the muddied field of blood, but because of the narrow terrain, the reinforcements only pressed against the ranks of those already engaged; the French troops were squeezed like an accordion absent any hope of inflating again. The longbowmen fired into the cramped French soldiers, each arrow likely finding a mark. So packed were the French that some soldiers suffocated in their own armor before even getting close to the enemy. When King Henry heard that his youngest brother had been wounded in the groin, he and his household guard surged forward. He stood watch over his brother in the first rank of fighting until he could be dragged to safety. Henry, ever the warrior, relished the moment to be back in the thick of it. At one point he received an axe blow to the head, which knocked off a piece of the crown affixed to his helmet. He handled himself well in the melee, but as the day was wearing on, he had to return to commanding his army. 

The fighting lasted three hours, at which point the French lost their stomach for the carnage and retreated back to the main French ranks. Leaders of both the first and second French lines were killed or captured, and the English Gesta Henrici describes three heaps of the slain lying around English standards. The French had been unable to penetrate the English lines despite their numerical superiority; the archers (and the muddy terrain) had devastated their numbers in turn. The only French success had been a raid on the lightly defended English baggage train, during which they stole off with a number of Henry’s treasures, including one of his crowns. Though the act has been credited to the French cavalry rear guard, some historians speculate that it may have been done by opportunistic brigands who had been shadowing Henry’s army. The raid happened either at the beginning of the battle or in its aftermath; chroniclers differ in the telling. After the battle ended, Henry looked across the field of dead to the French position. It seemed to him that they were regrouping and planning another attack. Henry worried that his prisoners, numbering into the thousands and actually outnumbering their captors, would use a renewed French assault as an opportunity to seize weapons and scatter the exhausted and dysentery-ridden army. Fearing all would be lost in such a scenario, he ordered all but the wealthiest and most high-ranking of their captives to be executed. The English knights were appalled, though whether their disgust was born from a sense of chivalry (Henry was, quite plainly, violating the rules of war) or from their consideration that dead prisoners don’t fetch good ransoms, is unknown. Henry threatened to hang anyone who disobeyed, and the English went about the grisly work. Only the most profitable captives, such as the Duke o Orleans, survived, and the grisly and rote execution of their brethren cowed any rebellious sympathies. Following the massacre the French retreated; though it’s likely they did so because they knew they were beaten, it’s also possible that any remaining morale faltered at the sight and sounds of their brothers-in-arms being executed en masse. It was as if Henry was saying, “This is the fate which awaits you,” and the French believed it.

the aftermath of Agincourt

French sources tell us between 4,000 and 10,000 French died, whereas the English lost only 1600. English sources report 1500-11,000 French dead but number English deaths at no more than 100. The lowest casualty ratio has France losing six times more men than England. Edward of Norwich, the 2nd Duke of York and grandson of Edward III, died during the fight. France suffered far grimmer noble casualties: she lost three dukes, eight counts, a viscount, and an archbishop, along with her Constable, Admiral, and Master of the Crossbowmen. The bailiffs of nine major northern France towns were killed, many along with their sons. One historian tells us that the battle “cut a great swath through the natural leaders of French society in Artois, Ponthieu, Normandy, [and] Picardy.” The Armagnacs, who stood solidly with the French king, suffered depleted ranks after the Battle of Agincourt, and the terrified and outraged people of France blamed the Armagnacs for a defeat on par with Crecy and Poitiers. The Burgundians seized the opportunity presented by a foe weakened in both leadership and popularity, and within ten days of the battle, their leader, John the Fearless, had mustered their armies and marched on Paris. Meanwhile Henry managed to bring his beleaguered (albeit victorious) army safely to Calais. He returned to England in mid-November and received a triumph in London. Englishmen and foreigners outside France saw Henry as a conquering hero. His victory at Agincourt established the legitimacy of the Lancastrian line in England and won him foreign support for further campaigns into France. His soaring reputation earned him a visit from the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund and, eventually, a footnote in the history of the Church. Sigismund worked to detach Geneva from her naval alliance with France, and he and Henry worked together to end the Western Schism. The Schism began during the reign of Edward II when three men simultaneously claimed to be the true pope; they were driven by politics rather than religion, and Christendom suffered. Henry and Sigismund worked together, and the Council of Constance (1414-1418) ended the Schism by deposing or accepting the resignation of the factious papal claimants and electing Pope Martin V. 

By late spring of 1416, the French had besieged English-held Harfleur by both land and sea. The English garrison’s commander pleaded Henry for help: their supplies were cut off, their soldiers were suffering, and they wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer. Henry was engaged with Sigismund, trying to win his support, so he delegated the task of relieving Harfleur to the Duke of Bedford. Bedford got to work, spending the early summer accumulating ships and seamen to board them. On 14 August the relief force set sail and by nightfall had reached the Seine Estuary outside Harfleur. Sunrise revealed a French fleet of 150 ships anchored midstream in front of Harfleur. The French outnumbered the English, and they had eight Genoese cataracts. The Genoese sailors (and their ships) were the finest in Europe, and the higher decks of the cataracts enabled the French to rain arrows and bolts down on any English ships that got too close. Despite these odds, Bedford had hope: the French fleet was arranged in an irregular formation, and the lighter English vessels could navigate the estuary’s sandbars, unlike the cataracts. Despite some misgivings he initiated battle, and the Battle of the Seine lasted seven hours. Bedford was triumphant: the French fleet was scattered, Harfleur’s port was now open to resupply and reinforcements, and the English had captured three of the Genoese cataracts and ran a fourth aground. English casualties numbered twenty ships with their crews lost. Bedford ordered half the English victors to relieve the starving Harfleur garrison, and the rest conveyed a wounded Bedford back to England. Word of the victory spread throughout England, and it reached Henry the same day that he and Sigismund rode together to the Canterbury Cathedral to join hands in an alliance and hear Te Deum sung. It was truly a great day: not only had Harfleur been relieved, but the Battle of the Seine undid the devastation of the late Battle of La Rochelle and made England master of the Channel once again. 

France after Henry V's conquest

Henry invaded France again in 1417, capturing Caen and Normandy. With these territories captured, Rouen, the heartbeat of northern France, was cut off from Paris. Henry besieged the city, which fell after a six month siege in January 1419. Though Shakespeare has praised Henry’s chivalry, his conduct at Rouen speak otherwise: when 12,000 French civilians were exiled from the city so as to conserve supplies for the French garrison and aristocracy, Henry refused to let the civilians pass through his lines. All 12,000 were pinned between the besiegers and the besieged, stretched throughout No Man’s Land and left to starve. By August 1419 Henry’s army was encamped outside the walls of Paris. In a stroke of luck John the Fearless, leader of the Burgundian faction in France, was murdered by supporters of his rival, the Dauphin of France; his successor, Duke Philip, made overtures to the English, and Henry and Duke Philip joined hands in the so-called Burgundian Alliance. What better way for the Burgundians to get vengeance on the Dauphin than to make friendship with his archenemy? Charles VI, now at the mercy of not only the English but also a vast swathe of France’s fractured nobility, didn’t need a seer to tell him the future: he sued for peace. The resultant Treaty of Troyes made  Henry’s reputation beyond even that of Edward III: whereas the former king had just captured, Henry had conquered. The treaty marked the height of English power in France, for it named Henry as regent of France for the remainder of Charles VI’s life and rendered the Dauphin disinherited. At the death of the French king, the throne would pass to Henry or his first male offspring. Henry married Charles’ daughter, Catherine of Valois, and the two would soon have a son, the future Henry VI, who would be heir to the French throne after the death of his father. The treaty was signed on May 21st 1420 and all England rejoiced. They had finally conquered their archenemy, and now England, rather than France, was preeminent in Europe. 

Not all of France welcomed the terms of Troyes, and the disinherited Dauphin led a spirited resistance. Following his marriage and bedding of the French king’s daughter, Henry returned to France to deal with the stubborn Dauphin and his supporters. From June to July 1420, Henry’s army besieged and captured Montereau Castle, one of the Dauphin’s premier strongholds, and from July to November he besieged Melun. As the next two years passed, more and more Dauphin strongholds succumbed to Henry’s forces. In May 1422 Henry won his last victory at the Siege of Maeux, where he contracted dysentery. He died aged 34 years on 31 August 1422 at the chateau of Vincennes. He was succeeded by his nine-month-old son with Catherine of Valois, Henry VI. The very next month Charles VI died, and Henry VI became the king of not only England but also France. The widowed Catherine secretly married (or had an affair with) a Welsh courtier, Owen Tudor, and she would be the grandmother of a boy named Henry Tudor, who would become one of the most widely-known kings of England, putting a screeching halt on the Wars of the Roses and inaugurating the infamous Tudor Dynasty. That day would be long in coming, but its seeds would be generated with an infant king who would succumb to madness, lose France, and see the kick-off of one of England’s most profound and devastating periods of revolution. 

The Tumultuous Reign of Henry IV

A Crown Usurped – The Death of a King – The Welsh Uprising – Harry Hotspur & the Battle of Homildon Hill – The Hotspur Uprising – The Battle of Shrewsbury – Henry of Monmouth in Wales – A Mysterious Sickness – A Government Fractured 

Henry IV of England

Henry IV had a short but chaotic reign. He sat on the throne from 1399 to 1413, and he was the first of three monarchs in the 15th century who hailed from the House of Lancaster. He was the eldest surviving son of John of Gaunt, cousin to Richard II, and grandson of Edward III—though he would make his bid for the throne based on none of this but, rather, on his descent from Henry III from the 13th century. During the reign of Richard II, Henry IV—known then as Henry Bolingbroke—had incurred Richard’s wrath by serving on the Lords Appellant who reigned in Richard’s stead following the Merciless Parliament of 1388. After his time with the Appellant, he went crusading in Lithuania and Prussia before returning to England. Richard hadn’t “buried the hatchet,” and it was only a matter of time before his vengeance against the former Lords Appellant fell on Bolingbroke. That hammer blow came in 1398 when he exiled Henry and stripped him of his inheritance, leaving him broke and hopeless. Bolingbroke wasn’t the sort to back down, and in July 1399 he invaded England not just to take back his inheritance but to seize all of England. 

Richard met Henry’s representatives at Conway Castle and was told that if he restored Henry’s estates and surrendered named councilors for trial, he would remain in power. This was but a ruse, for when Richard submitted, Henry’s men seized him and had him thrown in the dungeon in the Tower of London. A parliament was called that September, and there Henry claimed the throne. He used his descent from Henry III to justify his usurpation, but therein he erroneously claimed that his Lancastrian maternal ancestor, Edmund Crouchback, had been the elder son of Henry III but had been overlooked because of his physical deformity in favor of Edward I. Parliament didn’t care for fact or fiction; they’d had enough of King Richard and were ready to be done with him. They declared him a tyrant and deposed him, and he was carried off to Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire where he would eventually die (likely by starvation under Henry’s orders). Henry Bolingbroke took the throne on 20 September 1399, adopting the regal name Henry IV. At his coronation one of his golden spurs fell off, which many interpreted as an evil omen. Very well it may have been—the chaos of Henry’s reign was about to begin.

The first half decade of Henry IV’s reign was marked by rebellions in Wales and Northumberland, both of which were preceded by his snuffing out an attempt by Richard II’s supporters to get the old king back on the throne. Eight months after putting Richard’s diehard followers in their place, a Welsh landowner named Owain Glyn Dwr called himself the true Prince of Wales and seized Conway Castle. He received a large following among the Welsh, who resented England’s often oppressive rule. Beginning in 1400, Henry IV ordered a number of campaigns into Wales to subdue the rebellion, but the Welsh fighters held their ground. The Earl of Northumberland sent his son, Henry Percy—known as “Harry Hotspur” because of his ferocity—to fight for Henry IV in Wales. 

Harry Hotspur

During the reign of Richard II, Henry Percy had been named Warden of the East March and tasked with protecting England’s border with Scotland. It was there that Percy earned his nickname, for the Scots came to call him “Haatspore” because of his tenacity, daring, and skill in numerous border skirmishes. In 1386, at the tail end of the Caroline War, Richard dispatched Hotspur to Calais, where he led sorties against the French. When the French besieged Brest, Hotspur led the naval force tasked with relieving the beleaguered town. His prowess in the Caroline War earned him membership as a Knight of the Garter, and after peace came between England and France, he returned to his homeland and soon commanded the English forces against the Scottish Earl of Douglas at the Battle of Otterburn in 1388. He handled himself well despite being captured; he was quickly ransomed for 7000 marks. He witnessed Richard’s tyrannical unraveling in Ireland in 1395, and he returned to Calais the next year. When Henry Bolingbroke usurped the throne, Hotspur’s support was bought with lands and titles (the Percys had been supporters of the former king). So great was Hotspur’s reputation that Henry IV commissioned him royal lieutenant over the campaigns in Wales, and the king’s eldest son, Henry of Monmouth, the Prince of Wales, who was just a teenager, was placed under Hotspur and tasked to “teach [the Prince of Wales] the art of war; and they used to climb the mountains and sleep together as good friends.” But Hotspur’s time in Wales drew to a close: the Scots were raiding his homeland in Northumbria, and he was drawn northward to defend the frontier. He participated in the defeat of the Scots at the Battle of Homildon Hill on 14 September 1402 and acquired numerous prisoners. When Henry IV demanded that Hotspur send his prisoners to the Tower of London (where the king, rather than Hotspur, would make bank off their ransoms), Hotspur’s allegiance—bought but not quite paid for—began to slip. 

The Battle of Homildon Hill

The Percys, remember, had been supporters of Richard II. Henry Bolingbroke’s usurpation of the throne was but one reason, however, for them to despise him. The new king had not only failed to pay the Percys their wages due for defending England’s frontier, but he had also made a personal foul by refusing to ransom Hotspur’s brother-in-law, Edmund Mortimer, the Earl of March, who had been captured by Owain Dyr. Henry had refused to ransom the Earl of March because, according to the laws of primogeniture, March had a better claim to the English throne than Henry; the king figured it was prudent to have his possible rival enchained rather than roaming around and possibly causing problems. Ironically it was Henry’s fear of a possible problem that led to a monstrous one: the king’s refusal to ransom Mortimer, coupled with his audacity not only to delay payments to the Percys but also to demand their prisoners so he could line his own pockets, pushed Hotspur across that thin red line. He loaded his prisoners on wagons and left Northumberland, but rather than heading south to London he headed west to Wales—and he forged an alliance with Henry’s archenemy, Owain Dwr. There he proclaimed the Earl of March the true heir to the English throne. He returned to Northumberland to stir up revolt, and he even went so far as to join hands with his own archenemy, the Scottish Earl of Douglas. These three entities made strange bedfellows; it was not often that the English, Welsh, and Scots banded together. 

The Battle of Shrewsbury

Hotspur, along with his uncle, the Earl of Worcester, and their new Scottish ally the Earl of Douglas, marched towards Shrewsbury, which was held by Hotspur’s old protégé, the Prince of Wales. Henry IV marched hard and fast to intercept Hotspur before the rebels could link up with Welsh reinforcements dispatched by Owain. The king reached the town before the rebels, on the 20th of September, and the next morning he led his royal army from Shrewsbury to confront the rebels before the Welsh reinforcements arrived. The two forces arrayed themselves face-to-face at Haytely Field, just three miles from the town. Though medieval sources are at great variance when it comes to the numbers of the opposing armies (estimates for Henry’s forces, for example, run anywhere between 15,000 to 60,000 men), the chroniclers are consistent in that the royal army outnumbered the rebels 3:1. Henry opened parleys with Hotspur and his entourage, for he, like his son, was fond of Hotspur and hoped to put all this behind them. The peace talks came to nothing, however, and the matter would have to be settled by blows. The Battle of Shrewsbury began around noon, and it opened with a hellacious exchange of arrows from both sides. The Prince of Wales was wounded by an arrow in the face, but he refused to retire from the field. Neither army wished to duel it out with arrows, and the two sides charged into one another. The royal army quickly gained the upper hand, though the Earl of Stafford, leading Henry’s center, was killed. Harry Hotspur, true to his name, led a ferocious but rash charge into the English line. Before he could reach the line, however, an arrow plunged through his forehead and sank into his brain. He pitched dead off his horse, and rebel morale sank. Come dusk the rebels, run ragged, broke and fled, but the royal forces were too wearied to give chase. A contemporary speaks of Shrewsbury, telling us, “A more stubborn fight, it is maintained by those who were present, was never known. Very many of the combatants on both sides struggled with such obstinacy that when night came on they did not know which side had won: and they sank down in all directions a chance medley of weary, wounded, bruised and bleeding men.”

Hotspur Catches An Arrow

A lunar eclipse cast an eerie blackness over the field sprinkled with the dead and dying, and when Hotspur’s body was recovered, the English king wept over him. But running a kingdom doesn’t make allowances for sentimentalities, and when rumors began to spread that the infamous Hotspur had survived the battle, Henry was moved to desecrate the corpse. He ordered Hotspur’s body to be displayed in Shrewsbury; it was impaled on a spear set between two millstones, and after rot began to set in, the corpse was quartered. Its parts were sent to far-flung regions of the kingdom, and Hotspur’s head was set on a pike at the gates of York. The Earl of Worcester, who had been captured in the battle, was beheaded for his treachery; his own head was thrust upon a spike and displayed on London Bridge. These were the fates, the king was saying, of those who dared rise against his rule—no matter the affection he may feel for you. The lesson suppressed many who would otherwise have followed Hotspur’s lead, but a number of minor uprisings from restless Northumberland had to be squashed (the Earl of Northumberland, Hotspur’s father, vowed not to rest until Hotspur’s death and desecration was avenged). Thomas Mowbray, whom Henry had quarreled with during the reign of Richard II, and the Archbishop of York were executed for conspiring with the Earl of Northumberland to raise yet another rebellion. 

Owain Dwr had hoped for an edge with Hotspur at his right hand, but the Battle of Shrewsbury blunted those hopes. Owain was emboldened when news came that Henry IV had begun suffering a mysterious disease that left him incapacitated in his chambers for long periods at a time; while contemporaries named this sickness as leprosy, some historians believe it was some form of cardiovascular disease or congenital syphilis. As the sickness grew stronger, the king developed a massive tumor under his nose, and his body became covered in suppurating sores. Owain hoped that the king’s predicament would work in his favor, but his raids into English territory in 1405-1406 were met by the man who had been trained under Hotspur: Henry of Monmouth, the Prince of Wales. Owain had forged an alliance with the French, hoping that their aid could replace what he lost in Hotspur’s demise, but the Prince of Wales was too much for him to handle. Piece by piece the Prince subdued Wales, and Owain was forced into hiding. The rebellion fizzled out and Owain disappeared. All traces of him vanish after 1412, and though his cause came to nothing, the Welsh still revere him as a hero. 

Henry IV had managed to put down not only the Hotspur Rebellion but the Welsh Uprising, and though these were undeniable victories, they came at a heavy cost. These conflicts needed money, and the king had to rely on parliamentary grants. Multiple times between 1401 and 1406, parliament accused Henry of mismanaging his grants, and they were able to acquire precedent-setting powers over royal expenditures and appointments, further strengthening their role in English governance and politics. As his health further deteriorated, Henry’s administration was placed in the hands of the Prince of Wales. The government soon succumbed to a power struggle between the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was beloved by the king, and the Prince with his cohort of Beaufort half-brothers. The Beaufort faction was able to oust the Archbishop from his position as chancellor in 1410, but the Beauforts fell from power the next year. Henry IV regained his wits for a time and managed to make an alliance with the French faction that was waging war against the Burgundians (for France had fallen into a civil war between two competing factions, the Burgundians and Armagnacs); because of this alliance, Henry and his son had a falling out. Henry IV’s sickness got the better of him in 1412, and the Prince of Wales ascended the throne as Henry V. 

The tyranny of Richard II and the tumultuous reign of Henry IV would now be outmatched by a king whose glory would shine like the sun and remind the people of what life—and war—was like under Edward III. The English were going to conquer France.