Henry V (1386/7–1422), king of England (1413–22). Eldest son of Henry IV and his first wife Mary Bohun, Henry was born at Monmouth. The exact date is unknown, but was most probably 9 August or 16 September 1386 or 1387. The young Henry was thrust into prominence by his father's successful usurpation of the throne in 1399. He carried the sword ‘Curtana’ at the coronation on 13 October and two days later was created earl of Chester, duke of Cornwall, and prince of Wales, and subsequently duke of Aquitaine and of Lancaster. From then on Henry took a prominent part in affairs as befitted the heir to the throne. Between 1400 and 1408 he was mostly in the west, concerned with the war against the Welsh, initially as a figurehead but increasingly as an effective leader. On 21 July 1403 he was with his father at the battle of
Shrewsbury, where the English rebels under Henry
Percy, ‘Hotspur’, and their Welsh allies were defeated. Henry took a prominent part in the battle, but the story that he killed Hotspur himself is without foundation. Between 1410 and 1413 there seems to have been tension between the king and the prince. Henry IV's health began to fail and at first Prince Henry took an increasingly prominent role in the king's council, supported by the chancellor, Thomas
Beaufort. This led to factions in the council with divergent policies being pursued, especially with regard to France. In 1412 the prince's faction seems to have been defeated, because Beaufort resigned the chancellorship, and Prince Henry withdrew from the council. It is possible that the king was asked to abdicate in favour of the prince on the grounds of ill-health, but refused to do so and successfully reasserted his authority, supported by his son Thomas, who was made duke of
Clarence. The story of the prince taking his father's crown from a cushion beside his bed as dramatized by
Shakespeare may represent the actual disagreements between the prince and his father at this time. In the last fifteen months of the reign the prince seems to have taken little active part in government. Henry succeeded his father on 20 March 1413 and was crowned at Westminster on Passion Sunday, 9 April.
The start of Henry's reign was seen by contemporaries as a new beginning. Thomas Walsingham, a monk of St Albans, claiming that with the new king winter was past and the rain over and gone. Commentators were eager for the new reign and saw in Henry a man ‘young in years but old in experience’, who had dealt successfully with protracted Welsh rebellion and had been a prominent member of the king's council, well able to rule. The stories of Henry's wild youth and amazing ‘conversion’, as dramatized by Shakespeare, have some contemporary justification. The chronicler Elmham says that Henry ‘was in his youth a diligent follower of idle practices, much given to instruments of music, and fired with the torches of Venus herself’ and that on the night of his father's death, Henry visited a recluse at Westminster, made confession of his former life, and promised to amend. But the famous story of Henry's dispute with Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne, alluded to and embroidered by Shakespeare, is first recorded only in 1531 and has no foundation in fact. Perhaps it does not really matter whether these stories about Henry are true or not. They should be seen as symbolizing a break with the past, that is the failure of Richard II's and Henry IV's reigns, and a new beginning.
Henry lived up to these expectations and enjoyed considerable popularity during his reign. He provided good and dynamic leadership that fired widespread enthusiasm. He seems to have appealed to feelings of nationalism and nationhood; Christopher Allmand wrote that ‘It was as a very English Englishman that Henry caught something of the mood of the day.’ Henry encouraged the keeping of the festivals of English saints and promoted the use of English. He gave active encouragement to translators and began the use of English rather than French in government. From 1417 his signet letters to his English subjects were written in English. He used the war with France to promote the idea that England was a nation blessed by God and favoured because their king was also favoured. The general enthusiasm for the war is evidenced by the large number of the nobility who followed him to France, and by the generous grants of taxation made by Parliament before the first campaign. The contemporary
Agincourt carol commemorated the battle as a famous English victory. The
Gesta Henrici Quinti describes the reception of the king after he returned to England after Agincourt. The Londoners staged a triumphal entry with music and pageants attended by great masses of people, the civic dignitaries escorting the king from Blackheath.
A desire to create unity and nationalistic fervour were not the only reasons for Henry's aggressive policy towards France. He seems truly to have been persuaded of the justice of his claims. He did not at first claim the French throne but began by pressing for the implementation of the treaty of
Calais of 1360 in which the French had ceded Aquitaine, and to which he added further claims to Normandy, Touraine, and Maine. It is not clear whether Henry really expected to gain his ends by diplomacy, for he had made extensive preparations for war before the negotiations broke down in June 1415. The subsequent campaigns for the conquest of France were thoroughly well organized. Henry's diplomacy secured the early neutrality of John, duke of Burgundy; and after Agincourt the whole-hearted support of the Emperor Sigismund, with whom he signed the treaty of Canterbury in 1416. Militarily his main objective was the systematic reduction of the main centres of northern France. These, when provided with permanent garrisons, would become the centres from which the countryside could be subdued and governed. Henry's idea was that, once the initial conquests had been made, further warfare would pay for itself in the form of taxes from his new lands. The initial invasion was financed by borrowing and through generous parliamentary grants. The first campaign brought the capture of
Harfleur in September 1415, and victory at Agincourt on 25 October 1415. Further campaigns were aimed at the effective conquest of Normandy, during which Rouen fell in January 1419. Henry's success forced the French to agree to the treaty of
Troyes in May 1420, by which Henry was recognized as heir to the throne of France. The treaty was cemented by Henry's marriage to the Princess
Catherine, which took place on 2 June. After this Henry continued his campaigns to reduce areas of the country still loyal to the deposed dauphin, Charles. During the sieges of Melun and Meaux his health began to fail and he died, probably of dysentery, at Bois de Vincennes on 31 August 1422, leaving, as his heir to both crowns, his son Henry, less than a year old.
Even before Henry's death the initial enthusiasm for the war was waning in England. There were complaints about the high levels of taxation needed, and in 1421 the Norfolk gentry refused to join Henry in France. There was widespread resistance to Henry in France and, even in Normandy, English rule was not as welcome as Henry had assumed that it would be. It has been argued that the treaty of Troyes, which appeared to have been such a triumph, was in fact a mistake and that Henry would have been better advised to restrict himself to securing Normandy. Henry's interest in Europe was not limited to the war with France, however, and he had notable success at the Council of Constance, where, in collaboration with the Emperor Sigismund, he helped to resolve the
Great Schism. It is possible that all Henry's efforts with regard to France and the papacy were ultimately directed towards his plans for a crusade, which he never undertook.
Lynda Rollason
Bibliography
Allmand, C. , Henry V (1992);
Seward, D. , Henry V as Warlord (1987);
Taylor, F., and Roskell, J. S. (eds.), Gesta Henrici Quinti: The Deeds of Henry V (Oxford, 1975);
Wylie, J. H., and Waugh, W. T. (eds.), The Reign of Henry V (3 vols., Cambridge, 1914–29).
