The Hundred Years war between France and England had begun in 1337. At its heart lay the claim to the throne of France put forward by Edward III. Edward had waged war, with spectacular successes won at Crécy (1346) and at Poitiers (1356) by his eldest son the Black Prince. In 1360, without surrendering his claim, he had settled by the Treaty of Brétigny for substantial territorial concessions. But in 1369, war had been reignited and over the following fifteen years a revived France had recovered most of its lost land. There had been truces, but no resolution of the underlying dispute. Towards the end of Henry IV’s reign, as we have seen, the English were able to take limited advantage of French internal divisions.
Henry V had probably always intended to revive the claim to the French throne and launch a major renewal of the war as soon as he became king. He not only sought his royal birthright; he calculated that successful war abroad would reinforce harmony at home. Almost immediately after his coronation he began to re-arm. Cannon were being manufactured and stockpiled by the end of 1413. (Henry knew the value of artillery, having used heavy guns to good effect in his sieges of Aberystwyth.) Gunpowder and cannonballs followed, as did the general build-up of supplies of armour and weapons, especially thousands of bows, arrows and bowstrings. As he was equipping himself for war, he entered into negotiations with France for a ‘peaceful’ settlement of his ‘just claims’. He maintained in all his declarations and proclamations, both for the court of Christendom and for opinion at home, that he was seeking only the settlement of his rightful demand for the recovery of his inheritance in France. Through such a just war, he added with a rhetorical flourish, he would bring a long-lasting peace.
There was no immediate change to the tempo of foreign affairs in the first months of Henry’s reign. Until the autumn, when a truce with France was agreed, the two countries were technically at war. Thomas Beaufort, Earl of Dorset, who had been left in command of Aquitaine by the Duke of Clarence, raided northwards in the summer. France was a country holding several quasi-independent duchies and earldoms. Most notable among these were Brittany to the west and Burgundy to the east, whose dukes cut independent figures on the international stage. The power of Burgundy was enhanced by the possession of Flanders, Brabant and neighbouring counties and lordships in what are now the Benelux countries. But there were other powerful territorial blocs too, ruled by the Dukes of Orleans and Berry, the Counts of Anjou and Armagnac, as well as the Duchy of Aquitaine held by the kings of England. Only in the central northern region, the île de France and the Loire valley did the Crown hold direct sway. This was the France with which Henry negotiated.
First he renewed existing truces not only with Scotland and Aragon, but also with the French princes of Brittany and Burgundy. Events allowed Henry to begin to put diplomatic pressure on France. The fragile truce between the Burgundians and Armagnacs broke down shortly after he was crowned. The Duke of Burgundy fled Paris and civil war was renewed. Henry’s ambassadors negotiated with both parties, first seeking a marriage alliance either with Charles VI’s daughter, Catherine, or Burgundy’s daughter, another Catherine. As civil war intensified in France, so Henry’s ambitions swelled. Terms for an offensive alliance were discussed with a Burgundian delegation in April 1414, and their duke agreed to recognise the English claim to full sovereignty in Aquitaine.
Playing one against the other, the king sent a powerful embassy to Paris in July 1414. Under the pretence of seeking a general settlement of all issues and a perpetual peace between the two kingdoms, the embassy was instructed to make an outrageous demand: the complete restoration of all the lands in France ever held by the kings of England since 1066 as part of the price of the marriage to Catherine of Valois. No negotiations with the French since 1360 had gone beyond demanding the full implementation of the terms of the Treaty of Brétigny. To go back to 1205 and the loss of Normandy was novel to say the least. Negotiations were cut short, however, by yet another truce between the Armagnacs and the hard-pressed Burgundians.
It is almost certain that by this time Henry’s intention to invade France, though not officially declared, was known to all parties. He now had to adjust his diplomatic strategy. The first step was to go public. Another parliament was summoned. The chancellor declared at its opening, on 19 November, that the king would ‘strive for the recovery of the inheritance and right of his crown outside the realm which has for a long time been withheld and wrongfully kept’.11 To enable him to ‘strive for justice’, the Commons were asked to vote a double lay subsidy. They approved the tax, but insisted upon a further round of negotiation.
Ambassadors returned to France in February 1415. Given a new unity in France and the need to appear to be seeking a peaceful solution, Henry’s demands were less brazen. But they were still designed to be unacceptable. The French, however, were increasingly confident that they could take him on. It was possibly at this time that the Dauphin Louis, very much the driving force at court, sent an insulting message suggesting that the king would be better advised to stay at home and play tennis rather than risk war – immortalised by Shakespeare as a gift of tennis balls. The negotiations duly failed.
By April 1415 both countries were on a war footing. Henry had been preparing for almost two years; the French, united again, had been anticipating an invasion since the summer of the 1414. Henry called a council of his peers to Westminster at which he commissioned them to recruit for a nine-month campaign. He led by example, calling out all his own knights and esquires with their men and avowing his intention to take his whole household with him, including his chamber and the staff of the royal chapel. He began to assemble an armada of ships to transport this army, and he started to raise loans, underwritten by promises of future taxation and pledges of royal jewels and plate. Measures were taken to reinforce the border with Scotland and to guard against a revival of the Welsh rebellion. His brothers, Clarence and Gloucester, were to accompany him overseas, while the ever-dependable Bedford was to be installed as Keeper of the Realm in his absence, with a handful of chosen peers and councillors to support him.
There were feverish last-minute negotiations: by the English to detach Burgundy and Brittany; and by the French to delay the invasion so as to complete their own preparations. To this end they sent envoys to England. The king met them at Winchester early in July. He debated with them himself, the only recorded occasion in which he negotiated personally, and was reported to have lost his temper with their time wasting. D-day was set for 1 August. Nothing was to stop him.
The French had one last ploy: to seek to exploit divisions and resentments in England and to disrupt the king’s plans at the eleventh hour. One French double agent later reported that there was much disquiet at the highest levels in England about the wisdom of the campaign, that some believed a good peace could have been achieved by a marriage alliance and that there was talk of replacing the king. For all his confidence and bravura, Henry V still looked over his shoulder to the flaw in his title to the throne and the lingering threats he faced as a result of the taint of usurpation. One powerful factor in his desire to go to war was to seek God’s judgement and removal of this taint: to unite his kingdom behind him once and for all through victory on the field of battle.
Sure enough, there was a plot to stop the war. On 31 July, Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, in many eyes the true heir to Richard II, came before the king at Porchester Castle to confess his part in treasonable discussion. He informed the king that Richard, Earl of Cambridge, Sir Thomas Grey of Heaton, Northumberland, and Henry Scrope, Lord Masham, planned to seize him, raise Wales in Mortimer’s name and call out the far north in the name of the exiled but not yet restored Earl of Northumberland. He, March, was to be put on the throne.
This was the so-called Southampton Plot. Edmund Mortimer had been in the king’s household, under careful watch for several years. Henry had recently fined him heavily for marrying without his consent. Cambridge, younger brother of the highly favoured Duke of York, was disgruntled because he had not received an endowment from the king worthy of his newly awarded title. Scrope is the most puzzling conspirator. He had been a close companion of the king for many years, treasurer in 1409–10, still high in favour and a member of the embassies sent to France in 1414 and 1415. He subsequently claimed to have engaged with the plotters on the king’s behalf, so as to dissuade them, himself intending no treason.
March was pardoned. The other three were arrested, tried at Southampton on 2 August and executed three days later. The confessions of both March and Scrope, subsequently published, indicate that it was a plot in its early stages – barely even that – to be carried out in the king’s absence. Only later was it put out that they had planned to kill Henry. It has been suggested that the king seized the opportunity of March’s tip off to secure confessions in what amounted to a show trial, designed to make it appear both more serious and at the same time more futile than it was. Here was an opportunity to demonstrate that he would brook no opposition and to underline the fate awaiting any, even one of his closest servants, who dared question his policy and actions. The victims were executed. Two heads were sent to be displayed over city gates: Scrope at York and Grey at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The Earl of Cambridge did not suffer the same indignity; he was buried intact at Southampton. Scrope was guilty only of misprision, failure to report treason. Not only was his treatment mean, unforgiving and vindictive (his last will was not acknowledged), but the whole process was conducted without due process. Legality was only conferred retrospectively by parliament in November. Something of the king’s private self was revealed in all this.
The departure of the royal expedition was delayed over a week by the Southampton Plot. When the armada eventually set sail on the afternoon of 11 August, it transported an army of at least 11,000 combatants, most in mixed companies of men-at-arms and archers. Archers, including some in independent battalions, alone numbered 9,000. Then there was the artillery train – gunners and their guns, together with miners, blacksmiths, armourers, carpenters and stonemasons. In addition came the non-combatants – chaplains, pages and grooms attached to each unit – taking the total number of personnel towards 15,000. The host was mounted, many taking several horses: there were possibly 30,000 in all. In total, 1,500 ships were needed to transport the assembled mass. No larger force had sailed to France since 1346. All were required to bring victuals for three months. Henry had learnt the lessons of Wales. He had put together a fully paid, provisioned and equipped army ready for all eventualities.
Until the expedition set sail few knew its destination. One widely mentioned option was Bordeaux, where safe landing would be certain and a campaign could strike deep into the heart of France. But communications were long and the loyalty of the Gascons fickle. Normandy was nearer and offered the prospect of securing another base in northern France from which to launch further campaigns. So Normandy it was: the target Harfleur, a recently fortified naval base from which the English could also protect shipping in the Channel. After a calm crossing, the fleet sailed into the mouth of the Seine on 13 August and anchored just below the town. The war that was to preoccupy the king for the rest of his reign had begun.