The Life of King Henry V. Alfred John Church

multitude of the people but in the power of God.... By the aid of the Blessed Trinity your people held the field of battle and vanquished the said rebels, and slew of them, by one account eight hundred, since said one thousand.... No prisoners were taken save one, a great knight, whom I would have sent to you but that he cannot yet comfortably ride.... I pray God to keep you always in joy and honour, and to grant me that I may soon comfort you with other good news.”

      In this year by prompt action, and still more by skilful diplomacy, the King crushed a formidable insurrection that threatened his power in the north. After executing the chiefs of the rising—Scrope, Archbishop of York, and Mowbray, Earl Marshall—he turned his attention to Wales. If he could crush Glendower he had practically rid himself of his enemies, for he held in his power the heir to the Scottish throne. With his father’s action in the north the Prince could have had nothing to do; but we may be sure that he took a part in the Welsh campaign. Large as was the force which Henry brought into the field, little or nothing was accomplished. The Welshmen were driven from the plain country; but they could not be touched in their mountain fastnesses. Indeed the weather was so exceptionally bad that Glendower was believed to have secured the aid of this powerful ally by his magical arts. Early in the autumn the King returned to London, disbanding at the same time the greater part of his forces, and leaving the command of operations, as before, in the hands of the Prince of Wales.

      It would be tedious to give all the details of Henry’s proceedings that may be found in the public documents of the time. On the whole, we get from these sources the picture of a vigorous young prince, who must of course have been assisted by older counsellors, but who was not a mere puppet in their hands. He is making head to the best of his abilities and means against a formidable rebellion. He is much hampered by want of money, and the King and the Council try to help him. As time goes on, more means and more power are put into his hands. King, Privy Council, and Parliament seem to be agreed in trusting him. The King does not think it necessary to visit in person the region which he had put into his son’s charge. More than once, after proclaiming his purpose to take the field himself against the Welsh rebels, he changes his mind, and goes elsewhere. The Council accept without hesitation his recommendation of the Prince and his affairs to their care. When Parliament is sitting, it votes him money for the purposes of his campaigns.

      The proceedings, however, in the first half of 1406 are so important as bearing on the position of the Prince that they must be specially mentioned. At some time in March or April the Privy Council held a meeting, at which the succession of the Prince of Wales to the throne was considered, as was also the subject of his lieutenancy in Wales, and of his power to amnesty rebels who might give in their submission. About the same time the House of Commons sent up an address to the King, praying him to thank the Prince for his diligence in the government of Wales, to which, it will be remembered, he had been appointed three years before. This address is dated April 3rd. Two days afterwards the King renewed the appointment of the Prince as Lieutenant of Wales till November 11th. Special authority was conferred upon him to admit rebels to grace on such terms as might approve themselves to him and his counsellors. Before the period thus specified had expired—i.e., on September 27th—provision was made for a further tenure of his office.

      In the interval between April and September the King’s health had begun to fail so seriously that the question of settling the succession became urgent. On April 26th he addressed two letters from Windsor to the Council. In the first—written, it would seem, early in the day—he tells them that he should not be able to fulfil his purpose of being at Westminster on that day. Some ailment had attacked his leg, and he was also suffering seriously from ague. Consequently his physicians considered that it would be dangerous for him to travel on horseback. However, he intended to be at Staines that night; from Staines he would journey by water to London, where he hoped to be in the course of three or four days. The second letter was written later in the day. By that time his illness had so much increased that he had to give up altogether the idea of travelling. The Council would have to go on with public business without him. On June 7th the House of Commons voted an address of thanks to the Prince, which was to be forwarded to him in Wales. At the same time Parliament passed an Act declaring that the succession to the throne was in the Prince of Wales and the heirs-male of his body lawfully begotten; and failing these, to the other sons of the King and their heirs in succession. Six months later this was amended by another Act, which abolished the restriction to heirs-male. This was done, of course, from considerations of general policy, but it indicates a feeling of confidence in the Prince.

      The proclamation of this Act bears date December 22nd. Before this time the Prince had come to London, and this is positively the first time that we have an intimation of his presence in the capital. His name appears on the list of the persons attending the meeting of the Privy Council in the afternoon of December 8th; but it is absent from a list dated November 27th, and the Prince must therefore have been sworn in between the two dates. He was present again at a meeting held on January 30th, when the Great Seal was resigned by Thomas Langley, Bishop of Durham, and handed to Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury. How much longer his visit to London lasted, we cannot say. Probably he returned to the scene of his government when the season for action in the field came on. At any rate by the early autumn of the year he had gained considerable successes, having received the submission of three chiefs, an event which was evidently thought to be of considerable importance.

      In a brief session of Parliament during the same year (October 20th to November 21st) the Prince again received public thanks. A little later in the year the King granted him certain property which had been forfeited by the outlawry of sundry persons; and also reappointed him, for the fourth time, his Lieutenant in Wales. He had now, it will be remembered, completed his twentieth year. The Welsh appointment was twice more renewed—on December 27th, 1407, and again on January 19th, 1409–10. Probably there would have been an impropriety, now that the Prince had attained years of maturity, in handing over to any one else the chief command in the principality from which he took his title. But he seems to have had personally little to do with Welsh affairs during the latter part of his father’s reign. The last record of his presence in the country is a document, executed at Carmarthen Castle, and bearing date September 23rd, 1408. At that time he had been five years and a half in command. He had been so far unsuccessful in dealing with the Welsh insurrection that Owen Glendower still held out, as indeed he continued to do up to the day of his death. But the rebels or patriots, according as we may choose to call them, were certainly confined within narrow limits. The Welsh difficulty was no longer, as it had been in the days before the battle of Shrewsbury, a danger that threatened the throne of the Lancastrian princes; it had ceased to be even a serious annoyance. Glendower still remained unsubdued in his mountain fastnesses; but the rich plains of Herefordshire and Worcestershire were no longer in fear of his incursions. So the Prince’s Welsh campaigns were a success rather than, as is commonly stated by historians, a failure. How much of this success was due to his personal initiative it is, of course, impossible to say. When he was first formally appointed to his office he was just nine months younger than was the Black Prince at Crecy. Lads between fifteen and sixteen are now-a-days considered too young even for the responsibilities of a sixth form in a public school. In the England of Edward and Henry’s time men came much earlier to their maturity. The royal caste especially, accustomed from the very first to the realities of power, learnt very soon to act for themselves. The young Prince is probably entitled to a very considerable share of whatever credit may attach during the time of his active lieutenancy to the management of Welsh affairs.

      CHAPTER III

       Prince Henry and the Chief Justice

       Table of Contents

      The first part of Henry’s public life, the period of his lieutenancy of Wales and the Welsh border, has now been dealt with. We may pass on to the second, which may be roughly described as extending from the beginning of 1409 up to his accession to the throne. On February 28th, 1408–9, he was appointed Constable of Dover Castle and Keeper of the Cinque Ports. After this we find no mention of his personal presence in Wales, though, as has been mentioned, he continued to hold the office of Lieutenant of that principality. He seems to have resided