Agincourt (15 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

OF MONEY AND MEN

What will the wise prince . . . do when . . . he must undertake wars and fight battles?” Christine de Pizan asked in
The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry
. “First of all, he will consider how much strength he has or can obtain, how many men are available and how much money. For unless he is well supplied with these two basic elements, it is folly to wage war, for they are necessary to have above all else, especially money.”
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Henry V’s bitter experiences of campaigning on a shoestring in Wales had taught him the important lesson that successful warfare had to be properly financed. By the simple expedients of cutting back fraud and waste, restoring central control and auditing, reviewing rents on crown lands and keeping a close eye on expenditure, he had succeeded in improving the traditional crown revenues to the extent that, from some sources, he received more than double the income available to his father. Annuities, or pensions, which his father had cheerfully dished out like sweets to children to win favour, were cut back by half under Henry V—and those receiving them were now compelled to work for them by serving on the king’s expeditions, on pain of losing them altogether.
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Now, in preparation for the Agincourt campaign, Henry ordered his treasurer, Thomas, earl of Arundel, to audit all the departments of state and to report back to him on what income he could expect and what debts he owed “so that before departing the king can make provision according to the burden of each charge; and thus the king’s conscience will be clear and he can set forth as a well ordered christian prince and so better accomplish his voyage to the pleasure of God and comfort of his lieges.”
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These were not just fine words. Every single royal official, from the treasurer of England down to the humblest clerk in the exchequer, knew that the king himself was scrutinising their accounts. Despite all the other demands on his time, no detail was too small, no financial arrangement too complex, to escape his attention. The chance survival of a note by a clerk of the council reveals that even when Henry returned to France in the crisis after the disastrous defeat at Baugé in 1421, he still found time to go through the accounts of one of his officials, who had died four years earlier. Not only that, but he checked the mathematics, signed the accounts with his own hand, and made notes in the margin, indicating which items needed further inquiry from the exchequer auditors. Such personal and meticulous attention to detail was unprecedented and reflected both the energy and commitment that Henry brought to his role as king.
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As a result of all these measures, hard cash began to pour into the exchequer at levels undreamt of by Henry’s predecessors. Even so, it was not enough to finance a major campaign outside the realm. For this, the king needed to tax his subjects, something he could not do without the approval of Parliament. The principle had been established in 1254 that a tax which fell on all the people of the realm had to have their common consent and could no longer be approved solely by an assembly of lords; in 1407 it was further accepted that only the House of Commons had the power to grant taxation. The representatives of “the commune of your land,” as the Commons came to describe itself, were the knights of the shire and the burgesses of the towns who were elected in the shire and borough courts, two for each constituency. The lords spiritual and temporal were summoned individually and personally by the king himself. Both houses met separately and together in the king’s palace of Westminster, sometimes in the royal presence, and their meetings provided an opportunity to present petitions for the redress of grievances, to enact statutes, ratify treaties and confirm judgements (such as the condemnations of Cambridge, Scrope and Grey for treason) as well as to grant taxation.
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The forty years preceding Henry’s reign had been marked by constant and sometimes bitter conflict between the king and Parliament. All this was to change under the new king. During his years as prince of Wales, Henry had established extremely good relations with the Commons, which were to serve him in good stead when he became king. Parliament met more frequently in his reign than in his father’s, but its sessions were much shorter and, like the king himself, more businesslike and efficient. Working with and through its members, whose advice he actively and genuinely sought, Henry listened and responded to their concerns but also pre-empted their criticism by acting as a model king himself, prompt to do justice, financially efficient, administratively effective. As a result, Henry enjoyed the confidence of his parliaments to a degree that was almost unprecedented.
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The most significant result of this collaboration was the willingness of the Commons to grant Henry’s requests for money. Taxation at this period was levied directly and indirectly. The direct taxes were called subsidies, and were levied on the value of movable goods at the customary rates of one-fifteenth in the countryside and one-tenth in the towns. Subsidies were payable by everyone, regardless of rank, and only those having movable goods worth less than 10s were exempt. As far as the towns and villages were concerned, a fixed sum was levied from each one and it was then up to the local assessors to decide what proportion each individual inhabitant should pay. The clergy were also liable to pay subsidies at the higher level of a tenth, but these were granted in their own assemblies, called convocations, which usually met at the same time as Parliament. There was a separate convocation for each see, presided over by the archbishops of Canterbury and York, and their grants tended to mirror those made by Parliament. Indirect taxes were principally levied on the export of English wool. English merchants were required to pay 43s 4d for each sack of wool or 240 fleeces, and 100s for each hide; foreign merchants paid proportionately more, at 50s and 106s 4d, respectively. Henry also obtained further taxes of 3s per tun of wine and 12d in the pound on all other merchandise entering or leaving the country, for the specific purpose of funding the safeguarding of the seas. Grants of this kind were usually awarded for a limited term of several years so that the king had to come back to Parliament to obtain their renewal. In the nine and a half years of Henry’s reign, he received more than ten full “subsidies,” all but two of them during the years of intensive war effort between 1414 and 1420. Taxation at these levels had not occurred since the beginning of Richard II’s reign—and then it had caused the Peasants’ Revolt. Henry’s demands, by contrast, were met with scarcely a murmur of protest: as one historian has pointed out, he got more money with less trouble than any other king of England. By exercising his skills in political leadership, he was able to summon his parliaments in the knowledge that they would, by and large, do as he wished.
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Henry had been granted a full fifteenth and tenth in his first parliament, in 1413, but, in a move calculated to surprise and endear him to his subjects, had declined to ask for another at his next parliament in April 1414. This proved to be the lull before the storm because his third parliament, held in December of the same year, was asked to grant a double subsidy—not one, but two whole fifteenths and tenths. It fell to the king’s half-uncle Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, who, as chancellor, had to make the traditional opening address to the assembled Lords and Commons, to put forward a persuasive argument. A brilliant orator, he needed all his skills to win the day. Parliament had been called at the king’s command, he declared, to advise how to recover the king’s inheritance, which had long been unjustly detained by the enemy. There was a season for everything. Just as there was a time for a tree to seed, flower, fruit and die, so it was given to men that there should be times for peace, for war and for labour. The king, seeing that peace reigned in his kingdom and that his quarrel was just (both of which were necessary if he was to wage war overseas), had decided that, with God’s assistance, the time was now ripe for putting his purpose into action. He therefore needed three things: the good and loyal counsel of his parliament, the strong and true assistance of his people and a heavy subsidy from his subjects—but, Beaufort added, somewhat lamely, victory would reduce the costs to his subjects and bring great honour.
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The double subsidy was duly granted, its approval by the Commons assisted by the fact that the speaker for this parliament was none other than Beaufort’s cousin and Henry’s trusted adjutant Thomas Chaucer. The southern and northern convocations also obliged with grants of two-tenths, having their own reasons to be grateful to Henry V for his stout defence of the Church in the face of the Lollard threat. Fortified with the knowledge that large sums of money would soon be flowing into his treasury, Henry was able to intensify his preparations for war.
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Generous though the subsidy grants were, the money could not be collected all at once. Half was to be paid by February 1415 but the second half was not due until a year later. This left Henry with the headache of finding ready cash to pay for his military expenditure in the meantime. There was only one way this could be done: he would have to borrow. Edward III had financed his French wars by loans from the Bardi and Peruzzi banking families of Florence—and had ruined them when he defaulted on their repayments. This was not an option open to Henry V. Instead, he looked to his own subjects to help him finance the forthcoming war.

On 10 March 1415, Henry summoned the mayor and aldermen of London to the Tower and informed them that it was his intention to cross the sea to reconquer the possessions of the crown and that he needed more money. Four days later, Henry Chichele, archbishop of Canterbury, Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, the king’s youngest brothers—John, duke of Bedford, and Humphrey, duke of Gloucester—and Edward, duke of York, met with the city dignitaries at the Guildhall to discuss the matter. London was incomparably the richest city in the kingdom, and, as an international centre of trade, its merchants had greater access to cash than those of most other towns and cities. This was particularly important at a time when most movable wealth, hereditary, ecclesiastical, aristocratic and mercantile, was tied up in goods, especially jewellery and plate, rather than hard cash. It was an indication of how much the king needed the London loan that the mayor was given the seat of honour, and was invited to sit with the archbishop on his right and the royal dukes on his left. This flattery produced the required result. On 16 June the city offered the king a loan of 10,000 marks (almost $4,450,000 today), receiving from him a gold collar called the “Pusan d’Or,” weighing 56 ounces as security for its repayment.
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The choice of this particular item was pregnant with meaning, for it was an “SS collar,” which had been the livery of the Lancastrians since at least the time of John of Gaunt and was worn by their most important retainers as a symbol of loyalty and allegiance. It was so named because it consisted of a chain of some forty-one S-shaped links, which were made of gold, silver or pewter, according to the rank of the wearer. The “Pusan d’Or” was probably the king’s own collar, since it was made of gold and richly decorated with jewelled and enamelled crowns and antelopes, the former suggesting royal status and the latter being one of Henry V’s personal badges.

Though London was the first and the wealthiest city to be approached for a loan, it was by no means the only one. On 10 May Henry addressed what was, in effect, a begging letter to his “very dear, and loyal, and well beloved” subjects. It was written in French, which was still the language of choice for the English aristocracy, as it had been since the Norman Conquest, and under the signet, the most private and personal of the king’s seals. Since it was dictated by Henry himself, it bore the unmistakable imprint of his character and, as such, it is a very revealing document indeed. The letter was frank and to the point; a persuasive appeal to the recipient’s loyalty, backed up with just the tiniest hint of a threat. As an insight into Henry’s methods of governing, it could not be bettered. It opened by explaining that he was now setting out on his voyage, that he had paid his men the first part of the wages which were due to them and that he had promised them the second on the point of embarkation. The grants and loans he had received from his faithful subjects were not enough to enable him to fulfil that promise, “so that, for lack of this second payment, our said voyage is likely to be delayed, and the first payment, made by us, to be wasted, to the great injury of us, and of our whole realm, which God forbid.” Each recipient was asked, “as you desire the success of our said voyage, and the common good of us and of our whole realm,” to lend such a sum as the bearer of the letter would suggest and to send it “with all the haste that can be made.” “And you ought to take this our prayer tenderly and effectively to heart,” Henry added, “without failing us, or the confidence we have in you.”
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Who could refuse such a very personal and direct appeal? Certainly not the towns, religious communities and individuals to whom the letter was addressed. Richard Courtenay, bishop of Norwich, as treasurer of the king’s chamber, was the official charged with the overall responsibility for raising the money, probably because the chamber was responsible for the many personal items of jewellery and plate that the king had to pledge as security. Richard II’s gold crown, for example, which was studded with 56 rubies, 40 sapphires, 8 diamonds and 7 large pearls, and valued at £800, was pawned for a loan of 1000 marks from the people of Norfolk, who contributed sums ranging from 500 marks from the mayor, sheriffs and citizens of Norwich down to 10 marks from a certain Nicholas Scounfet. A great tabernacle of gold, richly garnished with jewels, which had belonged to the duke of Burgundy, was similarly given as security for 860 marks loaned by a consortium of laymen and clergymen from Devon, including the dean and chapter of Exeter Cathedral, the mayors and citizens of Exeter and Plymouth, and the abbots and priors of Tavistock, Plympton, Launceston and Buckfast.
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