1415: Henry V's Year of Glory (39 page)

Whether the emperor believed this or not is not known. But he would have been wrong to take it at face value. According to Benedict Gentien, the bishops were not located until the duke of Lorraine discovered them in the forest on 16 June, and handed them over to the duke of Bar. Therefore John the Fearless was lying when he wrote in this letter that they had been freed on his orders. It is approximately 110 miles from St Michiel (where the duke of Bar took the bishops after rescuing them) to Dijon, where John was at the time
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The timing is more than just suspicious. The only way John could have heard of their capture on the 8th, then sent orders for them to be released
and
heard back by the 14th that they had indeed been freed, is if the news was sent to him as soon as the attack had happened and then he
immediately
sent orders to the perpetrators to release the bishops. That implies he knew who they were, and had power over them. Even more incriminating is the fact that the bishops were not found until two days after John’s letter stating they had been released on his orders; so his letter to the emperor was written in the sure knowledge that they would soon be located. As if these two points of information were not enough to incriminate John, at the end of July he openly forgave the duke of Bar for his part in rescuing the bishops. So this letter was an utter lie from start to finish. It is worth reading again in that light – if John could be this duplicitous, what was an agreement with him worth? Was the first letter he sent to the emperor also a lie – did he really plan to kill Sigismund? The line,
‘I did endure my injuries patiently for a time’ might well have been as threatening as it sounded.

Saturday 15th

Henry and his council dealt with two cases of wrongful dismissal this morning. The first was a petition from Robert Darcy. The previous keeper of the writs and rolls of the common bench had resigned in favour of Darcy, and Darcy had taken over the keepership; but he had been ousted by John Hotoft, who had then pocketed the revenue.
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Henry granted the petition, and gave Darcy an income of £60 per year by way of compensation. Then he and the council heard the case of John Wykes. Richard II had appointed Wykes to be marshal of the household, and he had been dismissed ‘without reasonable cause’. The council agreed he should be restored to the marshalcy, and Henry gave instructions accordingly.
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Henry’s officers had recently bought goods worth £667 11s from the famous ex-mayor of London, Richard Whittington. He directed his customs officers at Chichester to pay the sum. Whittington was a long-standing and substantial financial supporter of the Lancastrians, ever since the days of John of Gaunt. Nevertheless even his patience could grow thin. The Chichester customs officers were trying to levy tolls on some goods of Whittington’s that had already been taxed once but which had been recovered after the ship they were on sank. Whittington, having seen his goods sunk once, had no wish to pay a second round of tolls. Henry gave orders for his goods to be released without further payment. He also directed that customs officers in the port of London should undertake to repay 1,000 marks that Nicholas Molyn and some Venetian merchants had lent the king.
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Perhaps the imprisonment of the Italian merchants on 24 May had convinced others that it was as well to loan the king the money he required.

After seeing to his business of the morning, Henry said a formal farewell to his stepmother, Queen Joan, and set out in a solemn procession to St Paul’s Cathedral with the duke of York and the earls of March, Dorset, Arundel, Oxford and Huntingdon, Lord Ros and Sir John Cornwaille. At the cathedral, he listened to a solemn Mass
near the tomb of his grandparents, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and his duchess, Blanche. Afterwards they processed through the city with the same lords and the mayor of London, Thomas Falconer, and 340 of the leading citizens. The procession followed him across London Bridge to Southwark Abbey, where he attended another service, before setting out on the road towards Winchester. The Londoners followed him as far as Kingston upon Thames, where the earl of Arundel turned back. The king said farewell to him. Then, turning to the Londoners, he asked them to return to the city and look after it. ‘Christ save London!’ he exclaimed as he departed from them.
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*

Back at Westminster Bishop Beaufort was preparing for his journey down to Winchester. He must have groaned inwardly when he saw Peter Benefeld and Hans Covolt approaching. They noted he was preparing to leave; could they have their money now? If not, could they have the letter he had promised them? Beaufort told them to go and ask the king’s secretary, John Stone, to write it out for them. And without another word he mounted his horse and rode off.

Benefeld and Covolt went to see John Stone. He was too busy, he said. So they went away. And then they came back. Seeing that these envoys were so insistent, he directed them to go and see the keeper of the privy seal, who was responsible for issuing writs for official letters in the king’s absence.
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Sunday 16th

Before Henry had left London, he had given instructions for a number of appointments and grants to be drawn up.
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Four royal justices were appointed and a grant of 110 marks yearly made to each of them.
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More loans were acknowledged by the king – £400 from the old bishop of Lincoln, Philip Repingdon; £100 from the bishop of Hereford, and £20 from the royal esquire, Richard Woodville and his wife – and provision was made for their repayment.
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Henry confirmed that the temporalities of the see of St David’s that he had granted to Stephen
Patrington on 6 April, were now his (Patrington’s) to keep. Lastly he appointed Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, Richard Beauchamp of Abergavenny, Lord Berkeley, Sir John Greyndour, Hugh Mortimer and Walter Lucy to govern the Welsh Marches and the counties of Hereford and Gloucestershire, guarding them against rebellion and invasion. In view of the events shortly to unfold, that last named man – Walter Lucy of Richard’s Castle, Herefordshire – is a very interesting addition. Clearly Henry trusted him. Whether he was wise to or not is another matter.
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Thomas Falconer, mayor of London, and Bishop Courtenay, keeper of the king’s jewels, met today for the formal handing over of the Pusan d’Or, the golden chain that would be the security for the loan of the Londoners. It was described in the agreement as

one great collar of gold, worked with crowns and beasts called antelopes, enamelled with white esses [the letters SS] and the beasts surcharged with green garnets, the charge being two pearls, and each beast having one pearl about the neck. And each of the crowns is set with one large balas ruby and nine large pearls; and in the principal crown that is in front there are set in addition to the balas ruby and the pearls, two large diamonds in the summit; and besides the crowns there are eight other balas rubies. The collar weighs in all 56 ounces. It is enclosed in a case of leather and sealed under the arms of the bishop [Courtenay].
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The agreement went on to state that it was put in pledge against the loan of 10,000 marks from the citizens of London, and the king was bound to redeem it before 1 January 1416. That was optimistic, in the extreme.

*

Benefeld and Covolt must have been becoming fairly familiar with the way the English court worked by now – and how men shifted their responsibility for difficult business. Beaufort had gone, and John Stone had sent them on to John Wakeryng, the newly appointed keeper of the privy seal. Could they now have their letter promising payment of the money? No, Wakeryng said; he could do nothing for them because he lacked any instructions from the king. As the king had
gone to Winchester, they would have to see the clerk of the council. And where was he? Unavailable. He would see them in two days.
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It was not easy being a foreign envoy to Henry’s court.

*

This evening, Henry and his companions reached Winchester.
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There he gave permission for his youngest brother, Humphrey, to make a settlement of his estates. Humphrey’s trustees were his two uncles Henry and Thomas Beaufort, the bishop of Durham, Sir John Tiptoft, Sir William Beauchamp and three other men.
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Having left London, and set out on the first stage of the road to war, Henry’s companions had begun to ponder the possibility that they would not return.

Monday 17th

The loans that Henry had been offered for his expedition so far give the impression that people were giving readily in response to his request. Further evidence suggests the process was not that simple. At Salisbury, the mayor and burgesses had received a letter asking them for money; Bishop Beaufort and the duke of York had even visited in person to ask that they give £100. It was a small sum compared to the 10,000 marks requested from London. But although Salisbury was one of the ten largest towns in the country, the citizens were reluctant.
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They resented being asked for yet more money on top of their subsidies and customs. Eventually they agreed they would send the king 100 marks, and that eighty-five citizens would find the money between them. Even so, at least one man, Thomas Pistour, refused to pay on principle. The mayor was forced to board up Pistour’s house, and an almighty row broke out, in which Pistour roundly cursed the mayor and was almost sent to gaol. But the real blow fell today. Walter Shirley informed the mayor and burgesses that no security had yet been forthcoming for their loan. He had returned from Westminster with the citizen’s money still in his purse and the angry voice of Bishop Beaufort ringing in his ears.
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*

At Dover the French ambassadors disembarked, not knowing that Henry had left London. It is likely that they were following the dauphin’s orders in going as slowly as possible, for they did not leave Paris until four days before their safe conducts were due to expire. But in so doing they missed the king. Henry was not keen to conduct yet more negotiations. His departure from London may have been timed to avoid them. Given the delays he had experienced already, one can understand his reluctance to wait any longer.

From Archbishop Boisratier’s point of view, the prospect of negotiating must have been just as disagreeable. The king whom he had to persuade was clearly already preparing for war – Boisratier could see that from all the men on the move in Southern England. Henry would not have spent so much on men and equipment without expecting a substantial return. When Boisratier reached London and found the king had already set out, he must have been deeply concerned. The fact that Henry had deputed Sir John Wilcotes to lead them to Winchester was probably a very small reassurance.
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Not all the ambassadors named in the letters of 13 April had arrived. The count of Tancarville, the lord of Offemont, John de Roucy, Jean de Villebresme and Stephen de Malrespect had not come. The archbishop of Bourges, the count of Vendôme, and all the others attended, together with their households. The total of 360 was more manageable than the 554 originally envisaged.
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And with them was Jean Fusoris, who had insisted on attending the delegation. He was still after the money that Courtenay owed him from his visit to Paris the previous year.
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Given the number of foreigners already in England seeking money from the king, his chances of success were slim indeed.

*

Sir Thomas Gray was riding back from London to his estates in Northumberland. As he was in the vicinity of Conisborough Castle in Yorkshire, the seat of his kinsman Richard of Conisborough, earl of Cambridge, he turned that way. The earl of Cambridge was at home – and had something important to say.

Sir Thomas was solid northern gentry: thirty years old and very well connected. His wife was Alice Neville, the daughter of the earl of Westmorland, one of the staunchest of all Lancastrians. But on his
mother’s side he was related to a large number of rebels and potential rebels. She was Joan Mowbray, daughter of John, Lord Mowbray, and sister of Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk – the man whose argument with Henry’s father had caused the Lancastrians to be banished and disinherited, prompting the Lancastrian revolution of 1399. That made Sir Thomas Gray first cousin to the duke’s son and heir, Thomas Mowbray, who had been summarily executed by Henry IV for joining Archbishop Scrope’s rebellion in 1405. Another of his first cousins was Walter Lucy of Richard’s Castle, a retainer of the earl of March, the Mortimer claimant to the throne; and the earl of March himself was his third cousin once-removed. The countess of Oxford, who had rebelled against Henry IV in 1404, was his mother’s first cousin once-removed, and the late earl of Northumberland and his son, Hotspur, who had both died fighting Henry IV, were his second cousins, once-removed.

For years Gray had been a loyal man. Like so many of Henry V’s friends, he had fought in Wales, and had been rewarded with an annuity of £40 by Henry’s father. But Henry himself had not greatly liked Sir Thomas – he preferred his brother, Sir John Gray – and Thomas’s annuity had been stopped. Sir Thomas had fallen into debt and consequently had been outlawed twice. Over the years he had found common cause with that other man whom Henry had little or no time for, the equally impecunious earl of Cambridge. So close had the two men become that they had sealed their connection with a marriage: Sir Thomas’s eldest son had married Isabella, Cambridge’s daughter by his first wife, the late Anne Mortimer, sister of the earl of March.