Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2

J >> J. Endell Tyler >> Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2

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[Footnote 227: This vote does not appear on the
Rolls of Parliament. Walsingham asserts that a
fifteenth was voted. Holinshed distinctly says,
that the "commonaltie gladly granted a fifteenth."
But he is no authority in such a case. The
Parliament, in the following December, granted a
tenth, and a fifteenth.]

Henry, impatient to repair the dishonour of the defeat which his
forces had sustained, and to reduce his foreign dominions to peace,
issued his writ, on the 27th of May, to the sheriffs of the several
counties to publish his proclamation that all persons should (p. 299)
hasten with the utmost speed to join the King, and accompany him in
his voyage. And now possessing under his command a larger force than
he had ever yet raised; after procuring by subsidies and loans as
large a sum as the power or inclination of his people supplied; having
also appointed his brother, the Duke of Bedford, Regent; he left
London (never to return to it alive), on the last day of May, or the
1st of June. From the 1st to the 10th of that month he seems to have
passed his days alternately at Canterbury and Dover; though the cause
of this delay does not appear to have been recorded. To whatever the
postponement of his departure is attributable, though he left the
metropolis not later than the 1st, he did not finally quit the English
shores till the 10th of June. On the 12th he was at Rouen.[228]

[Footnote 228: Three days after landing his forces,
he despatched the Earl of Dorset with twelve
hundred men to relieve his uncle, the Duke of
Exeter, who was closely blockaded in Paris.]

The Dauphin himself with a large army was at this time besieging
Chartres, and Henry having passed by Abbeville, Beauvais, Gisors, and
Mante, marched himself with strong hand to raise that siege. On
Henry's approach the Dauphin withdrew.

Some of these facts, with others, are contained in a letter which was
forwarded from Henry to the mayor and citizens of London, (it is the
last we shall have occasion to transcribe,) and which is chiefly
remarkable for his language when speaking of the Dauphin. He (p. 300)
will not acknowledge him to have any right to the title, and calls him
a pretender. Another point of considerable interest is the unqualified
manner in which he speaks of the cordial co-operation and sincere
attachment of the young Duke of Burgundy.

BY THE KING.

"Trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well. And for as much as
we be certain that ye will be joyful to hear good tiding of our
estate and welfare, we signifie unto you that we be in good
health and prosperity of our person; and so be our brother of
Gloucester, and bel-uncle of Exeter, and all the remnant of lords
and other persons of our host, blessed be our Lord, which grant
you so for to be! Witting, moreover, that in our coming by
Picardy we had disposed us for to have tarried somewhat in the
country, for to have set it, with God's help, in better
governance; and, while we were busy to intend therto, come
tidings unto us that he that clepeth him [calleth himself]
Dauphin was coming down with a great puissance unto Chartres.
Wherefore we drove us in all haste to Paris, as well for to set
our father of France, as the said good town of Paris, in sure
governance, and from thence unto this our town of Mante, at which
place we arrived on Wednesday last, to the intent for to have
given succours, with God's grace, unto the said town of Chartres;
and hither come unto us our brother of Burgundy with a fair
fellowship, for to have gone with us to the said succours; the
which our brother of Burgundy we find right a trusty, loving, and
faithful brother unto us in all things. But, in our coming from
Paris unto this our town of Mante, we were certified upon the
way, by certain letters that were sent unto us, that the said
pretense Dauphin, for certain causes that moved him, hath raised
the said siege, and is gone into the country of Touraine (p. 301)
in great haste, as it is said. And we trust fully unto our Lord
that, through his grace and mercy, all things here, that we shall
have to do with, shall go well from henceforth, to his plesance
and worship; who we beseech devoutly that it so may be, and to
have you in his keeping!--Given under our signet, in our host, at
our town of Mante, the 12th day of July."

Though the Dauphin avoided Henry altogether, he was forced to engage
with the Duke of Burgundy's army, and he suffered a most decided
defeat near Blanche Tache. Henry, meanwhile, was engaged in reducing
Dreux and other towns, still garrisoned for the Dauphin.

The town of Meaux was so strong, and so well manned, that the siege of
that one place occupied Henry from the 6th of October through the
whole winter, and to the very end of the next April. During this
protracted siege, in which the Earls of Dorset, and of Worcester, and
Lord Clifford were killed, Henry sent ambassadors to the Emperor
Sigismund for succours. He had the satisfaction, meanwhile, to hear
that his Queen was delivered of a son, at Windsor, on St. Nicholas'
day (December 6th). Whether the common report has any foundation in
truth, cannot now be certainly known: his father, however, is said to
have omened ill of the young prince when he heard of the place of his
birth, and to have spoken thus to Lord Fitz-Hugh, his chamberlain: "My
lord, I Henry, born at Monmouth, shall small time reign and get much;
and Henry, born at Windsor, shall long reign and lose all: but (p. 302)
God's will be done!" Probably this was a prophecy forged after the
event, and ascribed to Henry without any foundation in truth.

In the session of Parliament held December 1st, 1421, under the Duke
of Bedford as Regent, one fifteenth was voted for prosecuting the war,
with this condition appended, that the first half of it should be paid
in the money then current. The gold coin had been much lessened in
value by clipping and washing; consequently the Parliament, to relieve
the people, ordained that the receivers of the tax should take all
light pieces, not wanting in weight more than 12_d._ in the noble. The
people, therefore, got rid of their gold as fast as they could, and
hoarded up their silver.[229] The Convocation also, which met at York,
September 22nd, granted a tenth.

[Footnote 229: Rot. Pat. ix. Henry V.]

After reducing many towns and castles, Henry proceeded to the Chateau
Bois de Vincennes, near Paris, to meet his Queen,[230] who had landed
at Harfleur, on the 21st of May, with a noble retinue, and under
convoy of the Regent himself. Henry and Katharine entered Paris
together, where they were magnificently received; the same painful
contrast still being felt by Charles between his court and that (p. 303)
of his heir-apparent. The young King had put the spirit of the
Parisians to the test by a strong measure, in levying a most unpopular
tax; but the discontent did not break out into any open tumult. Indeed
(as the chroniclers record) their resentments were abated, or rather
turned into affection, when they felt the kind influences of King
Henry's just and moderate government, and observed his exact
administration of justice in redressing wrongs, and punishing without
partiality or favour the authors of them. By this just conduct he
gained especially the love of the people, who regarded him as their
father and protector.

[Footnote 230: Preparations had been made as early
as January 26th, 1422, for the Queen to leave
England, and meet the King at Rouen, but she did
not start till April.]

The Dauphin in the mean time was anxiously bent on recovering a crown
from which the victories of Henry, and the displeasure of the King his
father, had excluded him. His army was comparatively small, and he
therefore, whilst Henry was with an army in the neighbourhood, avoided
a battle, keeping always two days' march distant from him. Finding,
however, that Henry was now, at length, far away, he laid siege to
Cone, a town on the Loire, the garrison of which agreed to surrender
on the 16th of August, if they were not by that time relieved by the
Duke of Burgundy. The Duke not only sent into Flanders and Picardy to
levy troops to raise this siege, but importuned Henry also to
strengthen him with English soldiers and officers. The King's answer
was that he would come himself at the head of his whole army to (p. 304)
the Duke's relief. This was his resolution; but God decreed otherwise.

Very shortly after this resolution, Henry was seized by a disorder, on
the exact nature of which historians are not agreed, which proved
fatal to him. Yet, though much weakened, he resolved to join his army,
which, at the first approach of his disorder, he had commanded the
Duke of Bedford to lead on to raise the siege of Cone. With this
intention he left the King[231] and Queen of France, and his own
beloved Katharine, at Senlis, and proceeded to Melun. His complaint
was then making rapid and deadly progress; and, after having been
carried in a litter with the intention of passing through his troops,
he was compelled to return to Vincennes.[232] The Duke of Bedford, who
had raised the siege of Cone without striking a blow, hearing now of
the state of danger in which his brother was, left the army, and,
accompanied by a few friends, rode full speed towards the castle,
where the King lay.

[Footnote 231: The King, his father-in-law,
survived Henry not quite two months: he died
October 21st, 1422.]

[Footnote 232: A description and history of this
castle will be found in a work entitled, "Histoire
du Donjon et du Chateau de Vincennes, par L. B.,"
published at Paris in 1807. The Author refers to
the sojourn made in this castle by Henry's son
(King Henry VI.) at the close of the year 1431,
when he visited France for the purpose of being
crowned.]

Henry, sensible that his end was fast approaching, desired the Duke of
Bedford, the Duke of Exeter, the Earl of Warwick, Sir Lewis (p. 305)
Robessart, and some others, to stand round his bed; to whom we are
told he spoke to this effect: "I am come," said he, "to the end of a
life which, though short, has yet been glorious, and employed to
advance the good and honour of my people. I confess it has been spent
in war and blood; yet, since the only motive of that war was to
vindicate my rights after I had ineffectually tried milder methods,
the guilt of all the miseries it occasioned belongs not to me, but to
my enemies. As death never appeared formidable to me in so many
battles and sieges, so now, without horror, I regard it making its
gradual approach. And since it is the will of my Creator now to put a
period to my day, I cheerfully submit myself to his will." He then
mentioned two circumstances which tended to make him anxious on
leaving the world: the one, that the war was not brought to a close;
the other, that his son was an infant. But he was comforted on both
these points by the tried friendship and sound principles of the Duke
of Bedford, his brother; to whom he gave in charge both his kingdom
and his boy. He then desired the Earl of Warwick to undertake the
office of preceptor and guide to the young prince in learning and in
arms. Henry next left a charge for his brother Humfrey to be careful
that no division of affection and interests should take place between
them; he conjured them also not to quarrel with the Duke of Burgundy,
and enjoined them not to release the Duke of Orleans, and some (p. 306)
other prisoners, till his son was arrived at years of discretion.

This was a mournful hour for those noblemen and friends and relatives
who surrounded his bed. At length, having given all necessary
directions for the government of his kingdom and his family,[233] he
fixed his thoughts wholly on another world. He urged the physicians to
tell him the real state of his disease; but they evaded any direct
answer. Very soon he required them to tell him how long, in all human
probability, he had to live. After some consultation, one of them,
speaking for the rest, knelt down and said, "Sir, think of your soul;
for, without a miracle, in our judgment you cannot survive two hours."
His confessor and other ministers of religion then surrounded his bed,
and administered the parting rite of the Roman church, as it was at
that time and is still practised. He next desired them to join in the
seven penitential psalms; and when in the 51st psalm they read, "Build
thou the walls of Jerusalem," caught by the words, Henry bade them
stop awhile; and with a loud voice declared to them, on the faith of a
dying person, that it verily had been his fixed purpose, after
settling peace in France, to proceed against the infidels, and rescue
Jerusalem from their tyranny, if it had pleased his Creator to (p. 307)
lengthen out his days. He then requested them to proceed; and when
they had finished their devotions, between two and three o'clock in
the morning, he breathed his last.

[Footnote 233: Elmham says, Henry added several
codicils to his Will, leaving large sums to
discharge the debts not only of himself, but also
of his father, and also to reward many of his
faithful servants.]

Henry of Monmouth died 31st August 1422; and when he resigned his soul
into the hands of his Redeemer, he seemed to fall asleep rather than
to expire.[234]

[Footnote 234: Elmham.]

Such a Christian end of his mortal existence is not surprising when we
remember (a point on which his own chaplain will not suffer us to
doubt,) that every day of his life he read and meditated upon the word
of God, for the express purpose of learning how best to fear and serve
him; a daily exercise (says the chaplain) from which, when he was
engaged in it, no one even of his chief nobles and the great men of
his state[235] could withdraw him.[236]

[Footnote 235: Sloane, 64.]

[Footnote 236: It is satisfactory to find, even
among the mere details of expenditure, testimony
borne to his love of the Holy Scriptures. Among his
last domestic expenses is this interesting item:
"To John Heth 3_l._ 6_s._ for sixty-six quarterns
of calfskins, purchased and provided by the said
John, to write a Bible thereon for the use of the
King."--Pell Rolls, February 23, 1422, just six
months before his death.]

The bowels of Henry were buried in the monastery of St. Maur; and
his body embalmed, being put into a leaden coffin, was drawn to
St. Denis. Before and behind the corpse were two lamps burning;
and two hundred and fifty torches gave light to the procession.
The Abbot and Monks of St. Denis came out to meet it, and
solemnly preceded it to their church, where they performed (p. 308)
the office for the dead, the Archbishop of Paris singing the
requiem. From St. Denis the procession advanced to Paris, where
the body was deposited for a while in Notre Dame; and thence,
with great and solemn pomp, it was carried to Rouen. The Queen,
from whom the death of her husband had been before concealed,
here met the Duke of Bedford; and made preparations for the
conveyance of the body to England. In a bed, in the same carriage
with the body, was laid the figure of the King, with a crown of
gold on his head, a sceptre in his right hand, and a ball in his
left. The covering of the bed was vermilion silk embroidered with
gold, and over the chariot was a rich silk canopy. The chariot
was drawn by six horses in rich harness. The first bore the arms
of St. George, the second, the arms of Normandy; the third, those
of King Arthur; the fourth, those of St. Edward; the fifth, the
arms of France; the sixth, the arms of England and France. James,
King of Scots, followed it as principal mourner. The banners of
the saints were borne by four lords. The hatchments were carried
by twelve captains; and around the carriage rode five hundred
men-at-arms, all in black armour,--their horses barbed black, and
their lances held with the points downwards. A great company
clothed in white, and bearing lighted torches, "encompassed the
hearse." Those of the King's household followed, and after them
the royal family; the Queen, with a great retinue, followed at a
league's distance. Whenever the corpse rested masses were sung
from the first dawn of the morning till nine o'clock. The
procession passed through Abbeville to Calais; and crossing to
Dover, proceeded with the same solemnities towards London. When
they approached the capital, they were met by fifteen bishops in
their pontifical habits, and many abbots in their mitres and
vestments, with a great company of priests and people. The
princes of the royal family went mourning next to the hearse. The
corpse was buried in Westminster Abbey, among its most valued
treasures.

Among the public acts[237] of the realm his death is thus (p. 309)
recorded:

[Footnote 237: Acts of Privy Council. Cleopatra, F.
iv. f. I. a.]

"DEPARTED THIS LIFE, AT THE CASTLE OF BOIS DE VINCENNES, NEAR
PARIS, ON THE LAST DAY OF AUGUST, IN THE YEAR 1422, AND THE TENTH
OF HIS REIGN, THE MOST CHRISTIAN CHAMPION OF THE CHURCH, THE
BRIGHT BEAM OF WISDOM, THE MIRROR OF JUSTICE, THE UNCONQUERED
KING, THE FLOWER AND PRIDE OF ALL CHIVALRY--*HENRY THE FIFTH*, KING
OF ENGLAND, HEIR AND REGENT OF FRANCE, AND LORD OF IRELAND."

Here we would have drawn the curtain round the bed of Henry of
Monmouth; but truth and justice compel us to tarry somewhat longer in
the chamber of death. The tongue and pen of calumny have not suffered
the dying hero to pour out his soul with his last breath in prayer and
pious ejaculations unmolested; and the accuser's name is too widely
known, and has unhappily gained too much influence in the world, for
his calumnies to be passed over as harmless. Henry, having "set his
house in order," and being certified how short a time he had to live,
declares, on the faith of a dying man, that he had been fully resolved
(had the Almighty granted him length of days to put his resolve into
effect) to proceed in person to the Holy Land, and rescue the city of
God from the pollutions and abominations of the infidels. In recording
this declaration of the expiring monarch, Hume adds a comment as full
of bitter sarcasm as it is tinctured with his characteristic (p. 310)
spirit of scepticism. "So ingenious are men in deceiving themselves,
that Henry forgot in these moments all the blood spilt by his
ambition, and received comfort from this late and feeble resolve;
which, as the mode of those enterprises was now past, he certainly
would never have carried into execution." Had Hume been as faithful
and painstaking in the search of truth, as he was ready to adopt the
account of any transaction which was nearest at hand, and unscrupulous
in substituting his own hasty remarks in the place of well-weighed
reflections on ascertained facts, he never would have suffered so
ignorant and ill-founded a comment to disgrace his pages. Hume[238]
charges Henry with having left the world, forgetful of the
bloodguiltiness by which his soul was stained, and with a sentence of
hypocrisy and falsehood on his lips. To the first charge,--that Henry,
at the awful moment of his dissolution, deceived himself into a
forgetfulness "of all the blood spilt by his ambition,"--needs only to
be replied, that so far from his having forgotten the loss of human
life attendant upon his wars, the very page on which the historian is
so severely commenting, records that Henry spoke of that subject
openly and unreservedly to those who stood around his bed, expressing
his sure trust that the guilt of that blood did not stain his soul,
who sought only his just inheritance; but rested on the heads of (p. 311)
those who, by their obstinate perseverance in injustice, compelled
him to appeal to the God of battle in vindication of his own rights.

[Footnote 238: Hume's Hist. vol. iii. ch. xix.]

Again, Henry declares, on the faith of a dying Christian Prince, that
it had verily been his fixed resolution, as soon as his wars in France
had been brought to a favourable issue, to proceed to the Holy Land.
Hume says that this was a late and feeble resolve; and the ground on
which he rests this charge of falsehood is, that the mode of those
enterprises was then past. Hume ought to have known, as an ordinary
historian, that the mode of those enterprises was not then past; and
Hume might have known that Henry's was not a death-bed resolve, to
which the expiring self-deceiver clung for comfort when the world was
receding from his sight; but that in his health and strength, and in
the mid-career of his victories, he had actually taken preliminary
measures for facilitating the execution of that very design.

With regard to the first position asserted by Hume, that "the mode of
these enterprises was gone by," the facts of history are so far from
authorizing him to make such an assertion, that they combine to expose
its rashness and unsoundness. When Henry succeeded to the throne, he
found a large naval and military force actually prepared by his father
for the proclaimed purpose of executing such an enterprise, the
undertaking of which was only prevented by his death.[239] And (p. 312)
even a century after, the mode of those enterprises had not yet
passed; for Pope Leo X. successfully negociated a league between the
chief powers of Christendom, engaging them to unite against the
infidel dominion of the Turk. Not only were such crusades subjects of
serious and practical consideration in Europe just before Henry's
accession to the throne, and a full century after it, but, during the
last years of Henry's life, most vigorous and persevering exertions
were made by the Sovereign Pontiff to effect an immediate expedition
of the confederated powers of Christendom to Palestine, with the
avowed purpose of crushing the power of the infidels. The histories of
those times bear varied evidence to the same points: we must here,
however, confine our attention to some facts more immediately
connected with the case before us. In the year 1420,[240] July 12,
Pope Martin V, conceiving that Sigismund would very shortly bring the
war which he was then waging against the Hussites in Bohemia to an
end, in a bull dated Florence calls upon all Kings, Prelates, Lords,
and people, adjuring them most solemnly, by the shedding of Christ's
blood, to join Sigismund, and under his standard to invade the (p. 313)
lands of the Turks, and to exterminate them. He urges the formation of
one grand general army, and for all true men to take the cross; with
his apostolic promise to all who should so assume the cross, and join
the army in their own persons and at their own charges, and also to
all who should take up arms with the _bona fide_ intention of joining
the army, should they die on their journey, a full remission of all
sins of which they should have repented from the heart, and confessed
with the mouth; and, "in the retribution of the just, we promise them
(says the Pontiff) an increase of eternal salvation."[241]

[Footnote 239: Fabyan, 388.]

[Footnote 240: Annales Ecclesiastici, vol. xii.
Ann. 1517. See much interesting matter relating to
the whole of this subject in these Annales
Ecclesiastici of Baronius, continued by Raynaldus.]

[Footnote 241: Florentiae, iv. idus Julii, anno 3.
Annales Eccles. v. viii.]

In the following year the Pope wrote a most urgent letter to
Sigismund, pressing upon him, before and above all things, the duty of
extirpating the heresy in Bohemia; assuring him that, however
brilliant might be his career in other respects, yet by no means could
he so well secure the favour of God, renown among men, and the
stability of his throne. The Pontiff, in the same year, wrote
repeatedly to Henry, King of England, urging him to consent to terms
of peace between his country and France. We should have been glad had
we been able to contemplate the Pontiff of Rome, in the character of a
Christian mediator, urging two contending nations to be reconciled,
solely with the Christian desire of stopping the dominion of war and
blood, reconciling those who were at variance, checking the (p. 314)
violent passions of mankind, and restoring to Europe the blessing of
peace. But his desire was to reconcile France and England, in order
that the concentrated powers of the faithful in Europe might be turned
against the heretics in the north; and, when they were exterminated,
then that the same forces might proceed to crush the infidel, and
rescue the lands of the faithful from his grasp. The ecclesiastical
historian,[242] who records the letters of the Sovereign Pontiff,
assures us that Henry, King of England, had been repeatedly admonished
by "the vicar of Christ to make peace with the French, and to dedicate
to Christ his skill in war against the Turks, those savage enemies of
the Gospel; adding (what the facts of the case did not justify him in
saying,) that, in the agonies of his last illness, Henry confessed
that he was dreadfully tormented with remorse because he had not
consecrated his martial powers by waging war against the
Mahometans."[243] Surely this testimony is of itself sufficient to
rescue Henry's memory from having vowed that he had resolved to do
what he knew he never could have done. "The mode of those (p. 315)
enterprises was" not "past."

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