Henry IV (103 page)

Now began Clarence's real mission. Broadly speaking, the landed power of the Armagnac lords lay in central and southern France, including a swathe of territories encircling the Bordelais: Poitou was the duke of Berry's, Angoumois and Périgord were held by Orléans, Armagnac and Albret by their respective counts. This was what had enabled them to make a plausible case for the English recovery of the duchy in the Treaty of Bourges, and what now made it imperative for the future security of Guyenne that some accommodation be reached with them. When Clarence and Orléans met at Buzançais on 14 November, in addition to the published pact ending hostilities they had also agreed a personal bond of brotherhood-in-arms.
⁶⁸
Orléans may have hoped that this would soften the terms of his brother's captivity, but it was principally a safeguard against a new Anglo-Burgundian alliance; for Prince Thomas, it held out the hope of a free hand in Guyenne. On 17 December, having settled into his lodgings at the archiepiscopal palace, the new lieutenant of Guyenne, acting on his
father's behalf, summoned the count of Armagnac to do homage for his fiefs, as he had promised to do at Bourges, in return for which he was offered confirmation of his privileges. Armagnac resisted this, but he and Albret did draw up an agreement with Clarence on 13 February 1413 making it clear that, although they still regarded Charles VI as sovereign lord of the duchy, they also recognized Henry IV as rightful duke of Guyenne. In other words, they maintained the stance that they had implicitly adopted in the Treaty of Bourges.
⁶⁹
It was also reiterated that Henry IV would not support the duke of Burgundy against Berry, Orléans, or their allies, and that he would come to the aid of the Armagnacs if the French king attacked them.

This qualified and conditional salvage operation on the Treaty of Bourges was an encouraging start for Clarence, but its success would depend on the removal by military force of the threat from Burgundy and his supporters.
⁷⁰
This, too, Clarence set about with a will, reducing to English obedience a host of towns in the vicinity of Bordeaux.
⁷¹
The French marshal in Guyenne, Jacques de Heilly, attacked Soubise but was driven off with heavy losses, captured and shipped to England; survivors from his army returned to Paris to beg for reinforcements.
⁷²
Information reaching Paris in January indicated that the English were encountering little resistance in Guyenne and were thus able to campaign with moderation, persuading the duchy's inhabitants to recognize Henry's lordship ‘as if they were securely ensconced in London surrounded by their compatriots’, and that once spring came round they would take every town and castle in the region; unless a large French force was committed to the field, it would be exceedingly hard to stop them. At the meeting of the Estates-General in Paris on 30 January 1413, a barrage of invective was directed at the government's incompetence and corruption; under orders from the
count of Armagnac, it was told, many lords were continuing the war in the south and, by leaguing with the English, threatening to ‘destroy the kingdom’.
⁷³
There was no money to stop them, however, and April and May saw Paris engulfed by the Cabochien uprising and the renewal of the suicidal power struggle at the French court.

The revitalization of the crown's authority in Guyenne attracted little attention in England. Overshadowed by the domestic drama of Henry IV's death and Henry V's accession, its achievement was underestimated and its purpose misunderstood by many.
⁷⁴
Henry IV had no interest in ‘helping the Armagnacs’ or ‘helping the Burgundians’ beyond what could be won in return. The choice facing the English government in 1411–12 was the prioritization of Calais or Guyenne. The upshot, Clarence's expedition, shocked and shamed the French. This was the first major English campaign in France for a quarter of a century, and the sight of Clarence's army marching virtually unchallenged from Normandy to Bordeaux, being handed a Danegeld of £40,000, and then settling in to enforce its claim to Guyenne, revived the reputation of English arms abroad and struck terror into the French.
⁷⁵
Not everything went the way of the English, but despite Clarence's return to England to attend his father's memorial service in June, they and their allies continued to recover ground in Saintonge, Angoumois and the Bordelais under the new lieutenant, the earl of Dorset, whom Henry V continued to support, both morally and financially.
⁷⁶
By the time a year-long truce was agreed in February 1414, Henry IV's decision to focus on Guyenne had been vindicated and the crown's position in the duchy was immeasurably stronger than it had been two years earlier.
⁷⁷
This was one reason why Henry V was able to focus his attention on the war in the north of France.

¹
They were in England from 30 April to 9 May (E 404/26, no. 374; Allmand,
Henry V
, 48–50). For the terms ‘Armagnac’ (Orléanist) and ‘Burgundian’, see
Saint-Denys
, iv.446;
Monstrelet
, ii.102.

²
Vaughan,
John the Fearless
, 90.

³
Great Chronicle of London
, 90 (quote);
Saint-Denys
, iv.474–7; A. Tuck, ‘The Earl of Arundel's Expedition to France, 1411’, in
Rebellion and Survival
, 228–39;
SAC II
, 598–601.

⁴
CCR 1409–13
, 166, 240–1;
Wylie, Henry the Fourth
, iv.37–40; E 403/608, 28 Aug. The commission to the keeper of the king's ships on 15 July made no mention of his plan to go abroad. The preparation of royal barges to go to Guyenne in September was not for an expedition by the king in person (
CPR 1408–13
, 320–1).

⁵
Giles
, 60–1, and
Brut
, ii.371, say they approached only the prince for help, but the Great Chronicle of London says they only went to the prince after being refused help by the king;
CE
, 419, says they approached the king and does not mention the prince.

⁶
POPC
, ii.19–24;
Foedera
, viii.698–9. The other envoys were Bishop Chichele, Sir Francis de Courte, Hugh Mortimer and John Catterick.

⁷
Lehoux,
Jean de France
, iii.243–4. Some of these were the prince's retainers, and the force may have been larger than this: J. Milner, ‘The English Enterprise in France in 1412–13’, in
Trade, Devotion and Governance: Papers in Later Medieval History
(Stroud, 1994), 80, says 800 men-at-arms and 2,000 archers.

⁸
The great wardrobe made around seventy banners, pennons, standards and gytons of the king's arms, some red and blue, others black and white, for his ships before the campaign was abandoned (E 101/405/25, m. 2A).

⁹
CPR 1408–13
, 32;
Brut
, ii.371;
Great Chronicle of London
, 90;
Giles
, 61.

¹⁰
Duke John's enemies claimed he had offered to hand four Flemish ports to the English, to do homage to Henry for Flanders and help him secure Normandy and Guyenne, but the monk of Saint-Denis did not believe this (
Saint-Denys
, iv. 476–7, 522–5); when John met with English representatives at Peronne on 26 Sept., they asked for help to recover Guyenne (Tuck, ‘The Earl of Arundel's Expedition’, 231–2).

¹¹
Between 600 and 900 Armagnac knights and esquires perished at Saint-Cloud (
Saint-Denys
, iv.524–7, 560;
Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris
, ed. A. Tuetey (Paris, 1881), 15–17).

¹²
Despite his contempt for the Armagnac troops, the French chronicler was horrified that Duke John had allied with the ‘mortal enemies’ of France (
SAC II
, 601–3;
Saint-Denys
, iv.554–7;
Brut
, ii.371;
Hardyng
, 368).

¹³
PROME
, viii.511–58.

¹⁴
CPR 1408–13
, 346;
CE
, 420–1, says the prince and Beaufort were supported by many lords, and places the incident at the end of the reign, but
Giles
, 62–3, more plausibly associated it with this parliament. Beaufort's part in the attempted coup was remembered fifteen years later (
PROME
, x.290).

¹⁵
The prince was given 1,000 marks for his work on the council in 1409–11 (E 403/609, 18 Feb.).

¹⁶
Le Scrope was dismissed on 20 Dec. and Pelham took office three days later; Arundel became chancellor on 6 Jan. 1412, the same day that the new council took office. Both were replaced as soon as Henry V became king. Westmorland and Bishop Langley were summoned to Westminster in January, but probably then returned north (E 403/609, 16 Dec., 22 Jan., 6 Feb.).

¹⁷
17,000 sacks of wool and 33,000 cloths in 1412–13, compared to 12,000 and 20,000 in 1411–12;
CFR 1405–13
, 243 (clerical tenth).

¹⁸
PROME
, viii.518–19; E 403/609, 22 Jan., 4 Feb. Collection of the £20 land tax began in early January, but it only yielded £1,388 (
CPR 1408–13
, 378;
Lay Taxes
, 78–9).

¹⁹
PROME
, viii.513–14, 517, 519, 539;
CCR 1409–13
, 311; E 403/609, 22 Jan.

²⁰
Foedera
, viii.712, 721; E 404/27, no. 165.

²¹
Monstrelet
, ii.232–3; Wylie,
Henry the Fourth
, iv.64, 211; E 404/27, no. 221.

²²
Foedera
, viii.715–16.

²³
Signet Letters
, no. 760.

²⁴
Foedera
, viii.718, 726;
CPR 1408–13
, 428;
Monstrelet
, ii.236–41;
Signet Letters
, no. 957.

²⁵
J. Milner, ‘The English Commitment to the 1412 Expedition to France’, in
The Fifteenth Century XI
, ed. L. Clark (Woodbridge, 2012), 9–23, at pp. 14–15; Allmand,
Henry V
, 50–4.

²⁶
Berry refused to accept his dismissal from the lieutenancy of Guyenne in October 1411 (Famiglietti,
Royal Intrigue
, 101, 105; Wilson, ‘Anglo-French Relations’, 474–5;
Foedera
, viii.737; Vale,
English Gascony
, 61; Lehoux,
Jean de France
, iii.265).

²⁷
CPR 1408–13
, 427, 429;
CCR 1409–13
, 273, 328, 339;
Foedera
, viii.733;
Monstrelet
, ii.247.

²⁸
The texts are in
Foedera
, viii.738, 742, and copied, with the same difference in style, on the Gascon Roll (
CGR 1409–13
, nos. 126–7;
Monstrelet
, ii.257). The Final Concord was, for the English, the official copy of the treaty, sealed with six laces of silk and green wax (
CCR 1409–13
, 282). The letter of the Armagnac lords dated 24 January (
Foedera
, viii. 715–16) also referred to Henry only as king of England and duke of Guyenne.

²⁹
SAC II
, 608–11.

³⁰
Nine months later the lords of Armagnac and Albret, who still took some notice of the treaty, ‘protested and reserved that homage will be done [for them] for the entire duchy of Guyenne to the king of France at the due time, as he was in entire and peaceful possession of the same, and that sovereignty should be reserved to him. And that at the present, and always, the said count and lord [Armagnac and Albret] should have their
ressort
and right of appeal to the said king’ (Vale,
English Gascony
, 64–5).

³¹
SAC II
, 610. Prince Thomas's indenture was dated 8 June (
Foedera
, viii.745), but his command was probably decided by 11 May and certainly by 26 May: P. McNiven, ‘Prince Henry and the English Political Crisis of 1412’,
History
65 (1980), 1–18, at p. 9;
CPR 1408–13
, 373.

³²
E 404/27, no. 433 (quote). It was always as ‘the recovery of our right in Guyenne’ that Henry described the campaign (
Foedera
, viii.745;
POPC
, ii.19–20, 120;
CPR 1408–13
, 403, 418, 421;
RHL
, ii.333;
CE
, 419).

³³
Foedera
, viii.737;
RHL
, ii.314; E 28/23, no. 48. A milder version of Henry's letter is in
POPC
, ii.28–30, but since the
Foedera
letter was seen by
Monstrelet
, ii.260–2, this version must have been sent. For appointment of conservators, see
CPR 1408–13
, 423, 432–3.

³⁴
A dispute with Burgundy over internal Breton matters had led John V to join the League of Gien in 1410, but his relations with John the Fearless were soon repaired (Henneman,
Olivier de Clisson
, 206; Vaughan,
John the Fearless
, 247; G. Knowlson,
Jean V, Duc de Bretagne, et l'Angleterre
(Rennes, 1964), 68–75; E 404/27, no. 238). Early in 1412 there was even talk of a separate Anglo-Breton peace (
CPR 1408–13
, 428, 432–3, 473–4, 476;
Foedera
, viii.727, 732, 744 (safe conduct for Queen Joan's son, Gilles de Bretagne, to visit England, 20 May 1412, but by July he was dead of dysentery at Auxerre);
Monstrelet
, ii.296; M. Jones,
Between France and England: Politics, Power and Society in Late Medieval Brittany
(Aldershot, 2003)
,
vii.5, n. 23.

³⁵
The dispute between Donald and Albany centred on the succession to the earldom of Ross. It is possible that the captive King James encouraged Donald to challenge Albany, for whom he had no love: in August 1407 Hector Maclean, the nephew of the Lord of the Isles, came to London to talk first with King Henry and then with King James (
CDS
, iv.144, no. 698; I am also grateful to Steve Boardman for his comments on this question). James did not lack influence in Scottish affairs during his captivity, as witness his support in 1411 for the foundation of the University of St Andrews, that intellectual beacon of the north (Nicholson,
Scotland
, 241–3). Donald submitted to Albany in 1412, but when James returned in 1424 he awarded the earldom of Ross to the Lord of the Isles, perhaps indicative of his intentions thirteen years earlier. Hector Maclean died at Harlaw (Nicholson,
Scotland
, 234–7;
Scotichronicon
, 184).