S65 



HENRY V. (OF ENGLAND). 



HENRY V. (OF ENGLAND). 



cardinal Henry Beaufort. When his father was in exile in 1399, he 

 and a son of the late Duke of Gloucester were carried by king Richard 

 to Ireland, and placed in custody in the castle of Trim, where they 

 remained till the deposition of Richard. On his father's accession he 

 was created prince of Wales, duke of Guienne, Lancaster, and Corn- 

 wall, and earl of Chester, and declared by act of parliament heir- 

 apparent to the throne. He was introduced to arms, while yet only 

 in his sixteenth year, at the battle of Shrewsbury, where, though 

 severely wounded in the face, he fought gallantly to the close of the 

 bloody day. Immediately after this he was sent to Wales in com- 

 mand of the army employed against Glendwr, and for some years 

 he was occupied in the contest with that able and active leader, in 

 the course of which he evinced extraordinary military genius, defeating 

 his adversary in a succession of engagements, in one of which, fought 

 at Grosmont in Monmouthshire, in March 1405, he took his son 

 Griffith prisoner, and driving him from fastness to fastness, till all 

 Wales, except a small part of the north, was reduced to submission. 

 It is said that the renown and popularity the prince acquired by these 

 successes so inflamed the jealousy of his father as to occasion his recal 

 from the army, and that after this, allowing the energies of his ardent 

 mind to run to waste in riotous intemperance and debaucheries, he 

 drew upon himself as much reprobation and odium by his wild and 

 dissipated life, as he had gained glory and favour among his country- 

 men by his previous conduct. The story of his being sent to prison 

 by the lord chief-justice Sir William Gascoigne, for striking him in 

 open court, and other accounts of his disorderly and reckless courses, 

 are familiar to every reader. These anecdotes however are not 

 recorded by the more ancient chroniclers, and do not appear to have 

 found their way into our written history before the middle of the 

 sixteenth century, though they may have floated among the people as 

 traditions from a considerably earlier date. It is likely that they had 

 gome general foundation, though many or most of the details are 

 probably fictitious. 



Henry V. was proclaimed king on the 21st April 1413, tho day 

 after his father's death, amidst universal and enthusiastic joy. He 

 began his reign with several acts of a generous stamp transferring 

 the remains of Richard II. to Westminster Abbey releasing the young 

 earl of March from the captivity in which he had been held all 

 the preceding reign and recalling the son of Hotspur from his 

 exile in Scotland to be reinstated in his hereditary lands and honours. 

 He had been seated on the throne little more than a year when, 

 warmly supported by the church, the parliament, both Lords and 

 Commons, and by the nation generally, he entered upon the enter- 

 priss of the conquest of France, which forms nearly the whole 

 history of his reign. The claim which he advanced to the French 

 crown was the same that had been put forward in the preceding 

 century by Edward III., to whose rights he seems to have regarded 

 himself as the legitimate successor in virtue of his possession of 

 the throne, although he was certainly not the heir of that king by 

 lineal descent, nnd this particular pretension was one that stood 

 wholly upon descent by blood. After some time spent in negoti- 

 ations with the French court, which led to no result, Henry, having 

 appointed his brother, the Duke of Bedford, regent of the kingdom 

 during hi* absence, set pail from Southampton, August 10, 1415, 

 with a force of 24,000 foot and about G500 cavalry, in a fleet of 

 from 1200 to 1400 vessels, and reached the mouth of tho Seine, 

 about three miles from Harfleur, on the second day following. 

 Three days were spent in disembarking the troops. Henry imme- 

 diately proceeded to lay siege to the strong and well-garrisoned 

 fortress of Harfleur. It capitulated after a siege of six weeks, in 

 the course of which time however a dysentery that broke out in 

 their camp made a frightful devastation among the English. 



On the 6th of October Henry set out on his march through 

 Normandy, with a force which at the utmost could not have exceeded 

 9000 men. On the 19th ha succeeded in crossing the Somme by an 

 unguarded ford between Betencourt and Voyenne; on the 24th he 

 crowed the Ternois at Blangi, and then came in sight of a French 

 army, commanded by the constable of France and the dukes of 

 Orleans and Bourbon, the strength of which has been variously 

 estimated at from 50,000 to 150,000 men. The great battle of 

 Agincourt was fought on the next day, in which the English gained 

 one of the most complete as well as wonderful victories on record 

 [See AOINCOOIIT, in GEOGRAPHICAL DIVISION OF Euo. CYC.] Henry 

 then marched to Calais, and embarked for England. 



From his landing-place at Dover, where they rushed into the sea to 

 meet him, all the way to London, which he entered on the 23rd of 

 November, his progress was through a confluence of the people 

 intoxicated with tumultuous joy. All seemed to feel that the victory 

 of Agincourt was the conquest of France. But although no nation 

 ever received so great a blow in a single field as France did on that 

 fatal day when a hundred and twenty of her greatest nobles fell, 

 besides many more that were taken prisoners, including the dukes of 

 Orleans and Bourbon, the commanders in-chief in conjunction with 

 the constable d'Albret, who was among the killed it waa not till 

 after some years that, torn as she was by the most lamentable civil 

 dimensions, and left nearly without a government, that unfortunate 

 rountry at last consented to receive the yoke of her invader. 

 Harflenr was Attacked by the French the following August : but the 



attempt was put an end to by a great naval victory gained by the 

 duke of Bedford. In September Henry passed over to Calais, and 

 there had a secret conference with the bead of one of the great French 

 factions, John, sin-named Sans-peur, duke of Burgundy, with whom 

 there is no doubt that he came to some understanding about the 

 employment of their united efforts for the destruction of the Orlean- 

 ists, who now had the government in their hands. It was by thus 

 politically taking advantage of the dissensions of his enemies, rather 

 than by any further very brilliant military operations, that Henry at 

 last achieved the conquest of France. He returned to that country in 

 August 1417, having under his command a magnificent army of about 

 35,000 men. With this force he soon reduced the whole of Lower 

 Normandy. He then laid siege to Roueu, 30th July 1418, and was 

 detained before this town till after a brave resistance it capitulated on 

 the 16th of January in the following year. By this time the duke of 

 Burgundy had obtained the ascendancy in Paris and at the court of 

 the incapable Charles and his profligate queen; and he was not now 

 so much disposed as he had probably been two years before to aid the 

 ambitious project of the English king. From Rouen Henry advanced 

 upon Paris, on which Burgundy and the queen, taking the king with 

 them, left that city, and went, first to Lagny, and afterwards to 

 Proving It was at last agreed however that a truce should be con- 

 cluded between the English and the Bourguignons, and that Henry 

 should meet the duke and the king and queen of France on the 30th 

 of May. On that day the conference took place on the right bank of 

 the Seine, near the town of Meulan. But after being protracted for 

 above a month, the negociation was suddenly broken off by the French 

 party ; and then it was discovered that the duke had concluded a 

 treaty with the dauphin and the faction of the Armagnacs. On this 

 Henry immediately resumed his advance upon Paris. Meanwhile the 

 hollowness of the apparent reconciliation that had been hastily 

 patched up between the two rival factions became abundantly 

 manifest ; the formal alliance of the chiefs had no effect in uniting 

 their followers. At length, on the 10th of September, Burgundy 

 having been induced to meet the dauphin on the bridge of Montereau, 

 was there foully fallen upon and murdered by the attendants, and in 

 the presence, of the treacherous prince. From this time the Bour- 

 guignons, and even the people of Paris, who were attached to that 

 party, looked upon the English as their natural allies against the 

 dauphin and his faction. Philip, the young duke of Burgundy, and 

 the queen in the name of her husband, immediately assented to all 

 Henry's demands, which were the hand of Charles's eldest daughter, 

 the Princess Catherine, the present regency of the kingdom, and the 

 succession to the throne of France on -the death of Charlea. It was 

 also arranged that one of Henry's brothers should marry a sister of 

 duke Philip. Several months were spent in the settlement of certain 

 minor points ; but at last the treaty of ' Perpetual Peace,' as it was 

 styled, was completed and signed at Troyes by Queen Isabella and 

 Duke Philip, as the commissioners of King Charles, on the 20th of 

 May 1420 ; and on the following day the oath to observe it was 

 taken without murmur or hesitation by the parliament, the nobility, 

 and deputies from such of the commonalties as acknowledged the 

 royal authority. 



Henry's marriage with Catherine was solemnised on the 2nd of 

 June. On the second day after he resumed his military operations, 

 and some months were spent in reducing successively the towns of 

 Sens, Montereau, Villeueuve-le-Roi, and Melun. On the 18th of 

 November, Henry and Charles entered Paris together in triumph, and 

 here the treaty of Troyes was unanimously confirmed (December 10th) 

 in an assembly of the three estates of the kingdom. Henry soon after 

 set out with his queen for England, and on the 2nd of February 1421 

 entered London amidst such pageants and popular rejoicings as that 

 capital had never before witnessed. 



He did not however remain long at home. On the 22nd of March 

 his brother, the Duke of Clarence, whom he had left governor of Nor- 

 mandy, was defeated in a battle fought at Baugd, in Aujou, by a forae 

 chiefly composed of a body of Scottish auxiliaries under the Earl of 

 Buchan, who slow Clarence with his own band, an exploit for which 

 the dauphin conferred upon the Scottish earl the office of Constable 

 of France. This victory appears to have produced a wonderful effect 

 in reanimating the almost broken spirits and extinguished hopes of 

 the dauphin's party. Feeling that his presence was wanted in France, 

 Henry again set sail for Calais in the beginning of June, taking with 

 him a Scottish force commanded by Archibald, earl of Douglas, and 

 also his prisoner, the Scottish king, to whom he promised his liberty 

 as soon as they should have returned to England. His wonted success 

 attended him in this new expedition ; and he drove the dauphin before 

 him, from one place after another, till he forced him to retire to 

 Bourges. in Berry. He then, after taking the strong town of Meaux, 

 which cost him a siege of seven months, proceeded to Paris, which he 

 entered with great pomp on the 30th of May 1422, accompanied by 

 his queen, who had come over to join him, after having given birth to 

 a son at Windsor Castle on the 6th of the preceding December. But 

 the end of Henry's triumphant career was now at hand. The dauphin 

 and the constable Buchan having again advanced from tho south, and 

 laid siege to the town of Coine, Henry, though ill at the time, set out 

 to relieve that place, but was unable to proceed farther than Corbeil, 

 about 20 miles from Paris when, resigning the command to his 



