1415: Henry V's Year of Glory (44 page)

Saturday 6th

It was John Wycliffe who was dealt with first by the council of Constance. The first forty-five heretical articles to be identified were execrated once more, and then another 260 were likewise dealt with. Any memory or memorial of him was condemned. And then it was time for Hus.

The archbishop of Riga led him into the cathedral. The emperor was there, wearing his crown, and so were a crowd of prelates. In the middle of them all was a table and a pedestal where the vestments and chasuble were arranged for the purpose of unfrocking him. Hus fell to his knees when he saw the table and pedestal, and stayed there a long time, praying silently. As he knelt there the bishop of Lodi went up into the pulpit and preached a sermon about heresy, stressing how heresy does so much harm to the Church, tearing it to pieces, and how it is the duty of kings to eradicate any and all such heresies.

After the sermon, the charges against Hus were read out. He heard, stopped praying and stood up. He tried to reply but he was forced to be silent. ‘I beseech you, for God’s sake!’ implored Hus. But he was forbidden to speak. He fell to his knees and began praying again.

They began the unfrocking ceremony. Seven bishops forced him to his feet and adorned him in the vestments of the priesthood as if he was about to celebrate Mass. They took no notice as he called out ‘My Lord Jesus Christ was mocked in a white garment when he was led from Herod to Pilate!’ They led him up onto the table, and put a chalice in his hand. Standing there, in tears, facing the multitude of priests, he declared, ‘These bishops exhort me to recant and abjure. But I fear to do so, lest I be a liar in the sight of the Lord, and also lest I offend my own conscience and the truth of God.’

Taken down from the table, the bishops began to unfrock him. They took the chalice from him, declaring, ‘O cursed Judas, because you have abandoned the counsel of peace and have counselled with the Jews we take away from you this cup of redemption!’

‘I trust in the Lord God Almighty,’ Hus replied, ‘for whom I patiently bear this vilification. He will not take from me the cup of redemption, but I firmly hope that I will drink from it today, in his kingdom!’

They cursed him with every holy garment they took from him. And when he stood in just his gown and black coat they took a pair of scissors and obliterated his tonsure, removing most of his hair. They placed a paper mitre on his head, which bore the images of two devils and the word,
heresiarch
, shouting ‘we commit your soul to the Devil!’

‘And I commit it to the most merciful Lord Jesus Christ, who bore a much heavier and harsher crown of thorns!’ replied Hus.

They led him out of the cathedral and delivered him into the hands of the executioners. His books were being burned nearby, the smoke drifting across the city. Crowds had gathered to watch him go, and more now arrived, accompanying him through the streets. The emperor and authorities had foreseen this, and there were more than a thousand guards ready. Hus sang psalms as he was led along, and called out ‘Have mercy on me, oh God!’

So many people were crowding around Hus that, to avoid the masses, the guards had to force them back from the bridge out of the city. Once across, Hus’s executioners led him off the road that led to Gottleiben Castle and around the edge of a meadow beside the road, to the place where the stake was. Two wagon loads of straw and brushwood stood ready. People in the crowd following started shouting that he should have a confessor before he died but a mounted priest, wearing a green suit with a red silk lining, shouted back that he had been excommunicated, and deserved no confessor.

More people were flocking to the place of execution. Soldiers started running towards Hus, lest matters get out of hand. Ulrich Richental, who was an eyewitness, estimated that there were three thousand armed men there. He was standing near as Hus approached the stake; Richental saw him fall to his knees and scream to Christ for mercy. At the place of execution he was offered a confession on the condition that he recant. ‘I am no mortal sinner!’ he yelled, terrified. So they proceeded.

Hus was tied to the stake with ropes, his hands being tied behind his back. He was made to stand on a stool, and a sooty chain fastened around his neck. The executioners took brushwood and straw from
the wagons and piled it around him. They scattered a little pitch over it, and lit the fire.

Hus began to sing. ‘Christ thou son of the living God, have mercy on us.’ As he sang the wind caught the flames and the smoke and flames began to rise into his face, and for those who saw him it seemed his lips were moving but they could hear nothing. Soon they heard not singing but the cries and screams of excruciating pain, as the fire burned his gown and his skin. The executioners piled on more straw and brushwood. And so he died.

The paper mitre on Hus’s head did not burn straightaway, according to Richental, so the executioners knocked it off into the flames with a stick. They had orders to ensure that no trace of him remained. No artefact of his had been removed in the cathedral: everything he wore on the day of his death was to be obliterated with him. His purse, his coat, his clothes, his belt – even his knives. And the full extent of this order became clear as the flames died down. The executioners knocked his charred flesh into the fire, and broke the bones with clubs so that they would be burned more thoroughly. As the fire died down they found his skull, dragged it out, and smashed it open with their clubs. The pieces they threw back into the flames.
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The ashes were guarded. When cold enough, they were gathered up and cast into the Rhine. The very determination to remove Hus entirely from physical existence – like the will to eliminate any memory of Wycliffe – shows how seriously the council regarded him. The first great battle of the year 1415 was over; and although Jan Hus had lost his life, the cause for which he fought had a new martyr and was immeasurably stronger. Christendom was never the same again.

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Fusoris went to Wolvesey Castle next morning with his servant, Jean du Berle, taking the astrolabe and astrological tracts that he had mentioned to Courtenay. The French ambassadors were still with the king when he arrived, and he waited in the hall. Eventually the meeting broke up and the king and all the negotiators, including Courtenay, came down the stairs from the great chamber and went into the chapel. Fusoris followed them, and heard Courtenay celebrate Mass. When
it was over, Courtenay signalled to him to approach, and led him to the king’s pew.

‘My lord,’ said Courtenay, ‘this is Master Jean Fusoris, that I spoke of, who, thinking there would be a treaty of peace, has brought with him a composition for your solid sphere, another for an instrument wherein may be seen the motions of the planets, their conjunctions, oppositions and aspects, together with a figure of the heavens at all hours, a small astrolabe and a practical guide on how to use it, and a sextant that he offers to your majesty.’

‘Thank you,’ said the king in Latin, as Fusoris – on one knee – produced the articles and passed them to the bishop one by one. ‘
Grans merci
,’ he added afterwards.

‘I hope they are pleasing to you, serene prince,’ replied Fusoris, in French.

The king said nothing more but Courtenay told Fusoris he was invited to dine with them.
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This tendency to say very little was Henry’s usual manner. However, today he was particularly disinclined to make small talk with a visiting French astrologer. The negotiations had to be brought to a close. He had recalled the French ambassadors to the palace for the final day of negotiations and had delivered his verdict on their offer made on Thursday. He wanted the ambassadors to tell him exactly when he could expect Princess Katherine to be delivered to him with her jewels and 850,000 crowns, and when the towns and lands would be delivered to him. He declared he was happy with these terms on one condition – that the ambassadors agree a truce to last fifty years. Of course he knew well that the ambassadors had no authority to agree this term – so he would send his own ambassadors to Paris to put the proposal to the king of France while the French ambassadors remained here in England. Much lively debate had followed this. Henry Beaufort had insisted the girl be handed over with the money and jewels on St Andrew’s Day (30 November). The French objected, on the grounds that it would be impossible to gather all the money by then. And they maintained they could not agree to the fifty-year truce because they had insufficient authority, and they could not assure the king of the terms on which he was to hold these new lands. He wanted full sovereignty and the French ambassadors would not say exactly on what
basis the offer was made.
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At this point they broke to attend Mass and then eat dinner.

After dinner Courtenay came up to Fusoris and shook his hand. The final stage of the embassy now had to take place. Courtenay informed Fusoris that there would be no deal, no peace treaty and no marriage. He expressed his regret, for he believed that had the French envoys come sooner then the whole matter could have been settled. In this way he once more turned reality around to suggest it was all the fault of the French. Fusoris objected that, regarding the marriage, that was the fault of the English, for the usual amount of money had been offered – and more besides. It was Henry’s obstinacy and his excessive demands for the peace that were to blame. Courtenay replied that, no, Henry was a good, wise man. He was chaste and pure – the bishop was sure that he had not slept with a woman since becoming king. But what did Fusoris think of him, now he had met him?

Fusoris’s answer is very revealing. Henry had a great stateliness, and the fine manner of a high lord, but he seemed better suited for the Church than for war. The real soldier in the family was not Henry but his brother Thomas, duke of Clarence – or so it appeared to Fusoris.
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That afternoon the king and the ambassadors reconvened in the great chamber. Fusoris was with them this time. There was no further debate. Henry Beaufort reiterated the whole process of the peace negotiations, from the original demands in 1414 down to the debate that morning.

But you do not have the power or the will, as each of you knows, to agree with our lord the king about the manner and the form in which he will hold these lands: if, for example, it will be as King Edward III of happy memory held them, and without prejudice to his rights, or otherwise. You are no better when it comes to the prolongation of the truce and avoiding the effusion of human blood, nor on the exact date and time of the handing over of the Princess Katherine with the money and jewels.
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Beaufort went on to juxtapose these supposed failings on the part of the French negotiators with the fact that Henry had showed himself prepared to forego ‘great, important and notable things’ such as his claim to the throne of France, the duchies of Normandy and Touraine,
the counties of Anjou and Maine, overlordship of Brittany and Flanders, and other lands claimed ‘in the time of Edward of venerable memory’ and delivered to him by treaty. As a result of this, claimed Beaufort, it seemed that the French king had no sincere intention of working towards a permanent peace.

According to the chronicler Enguerrand Monstrelet, it was the archbishop of Canterbury, not Beaufort, who delivered the speech. He states that he ended with the declaration that unless the French delivered Henry everything that had been owed to Edward III by the Treaty of Brétigny, he would invade France and despoil the whole of the kingdom, and that he would remove Charles VI from the throne with his sword. To this Boisratier is supposed to have replied,

O king, how can you consistently with honour and justice, wish to dethrone and iniquitously destroy the most Christian king of the French, our very dear and most redoubted lord, the noblest and most excellent of all the kings in Christendom? O king, with all due reverence and respect, do you think he has offered, by me, such an extent of territory and so large a sum of money with his daughter in marriage, through any fear of you, your subjects or allies? By no means! But moved by pity and his love of peace he has made these offers to avoid the shedding of innocent blood … for whenever you will make your promised attempt, he will call upon God, the blessed Virgin, and on all the saints, making his appeal to them for the justice of his cause … We have now only to entreat you that you will have us safely conducted out of the realm and that you will write to our said king under your hand a seal, the answer you have given us.
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Henry ordered that a letter summarising the final response be drawn up and sealed with the privy seal. It would be ready by the end of the day. The peace negotiations were over.

A later source states that Archbishop Boisratier lost his temper at this point and declared that Henry had no right to claim the throne of France as he had no claim to the throne of England; and he and his fellow ambassadors should have been negotiating with the heirs of Richard II, not Henry.
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We cannot be certain whether this preserves a real event – a loss of control that could not have been allowed to stand in the official record – or whether it was just an imaginative
embellishment. If Archbishop Boisratier did lose his temper, who could blame him?

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Back at Constance, the king of France’s ambassadors succeeded in having the propositions of Jean Petit refuted. Although Petit was not actually named in the edict condemning tyrannicide, it was clear in which direction it was intended. Drafted by Dr Jean Gerson, it stated:

The holy synod, being particularly desirous of finding measures to extinguish the errors and heresies now springing up in various parts of the world, as it is bound and was convened to do, has learned recently that certain propositions have been published, erroneous and scandalous on many counts, both to faith and good morals, and aimed at the overthrow of the whole fabric and order of the state. Among these propositions the following is reported. ‘Any tyrant may and should be rightfully and meritoriously killed by any of his vassals or subjects, even by methods of secret conspiracy, blandishment and flattery, notwithstanding any vow or league the vassal may have made with him and without waiting for a sentence or mandate from any judge whatsoever.’ In order to oppose this error, the holy synod … decrees and affirms that this doctrine is erroneous in faith and morals, and disapproves and condemns it as heretical, scandalous and seditious, opening the way to craft, deceit, falsehood, treachery and perjury. In addition, it declares and decrees and affirms that those who obstinately maintain this most perilous doctrine are heretics and as such should be punished by the rules of the canons and the law.
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