Post-classical history

NOTES

Short titles or abbreviations in the notes are fully described in the select bibliography. All manuscript references relate to documents in The National Archives (TNA) unless otherwise stated. All places of publication are London unless otherwise stated.

Author’s Note

  1. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 67.

Introduction

  1. CH, iii, p. 7.

  2. LK, pp. 6–7.

  3. Manning (ed.), Life and Raigne of King Henrie IIII, p. 19.

  4. CH, iii, p. 9.

  5. CH, iii, p. 5.

  6. CH, iii, p. 74.

  7. Ramsay, Lancaster and York, i, p. 142.

  8. CH, iii, p. 74.

  9. Edward V – king for just two months – is the only king to have been the subject of just one biographical study, but he was not crowned. Nor did he hold a parliament. At the time of writing, Henry is the subject of Kirby’s book, and his life up to 1399 is the subject of Mary Bruce’s, The Usurper King. Every other post-Conquest king of England has been the subject of at least two serious biographies.

10. Kirby, p. 42.

11. LK, p. 7.

12. LK, p. 20.

13. LK, p. 133.

14. Henry IV by Bryan Bevan (1994) has little literary merit and less historical understanding. The other, The Usurper King by Mary Bruce (1986) is much better but it deals only with Henry’s life up to 1399. Bruce rarely strays from traditional assumptions about Henry and Richard, quick to repeat post-Shakespearian orthodox judgements against him for his ‘usurpation’ and slow to question the traditional, more sympathetic view of Richard II.

15. Chrimes, Ross & Griffiths (eds), Fifteenth-Century England, xii.

16. Since writing this I have heard from Professor Anthony Tuck that he has recently completed a political biography of Henry IV.

17. This statement is based on the assumption that Henry I had no part in the death of William II, and that John’s claim to take precedence over his nephew, Arthur, was lawful.

18. Eric Homberger, Times Higher Education Supplement, 9 October 1987, p. 11, quoted in CB, v. The McFarlane quotation following this comes from the same source.

19. The quotation comes from Philip K. Wilson, Surgery, Skin and Syphilis: Daniel Turner’s London (1667–1741), Clio Medica 54 (Amsterdam, 1999), p. 5, quoting Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory 1: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture (1994), p. 4.

20. The quotation comes from P. A. Johnson, Duke Richard of York (Oxford, 1988), preface page. It is reminiscent of McFarlane’s own ‘the formal records alone survive; behind them lies a tangle of human motives … and these are not revealed.’ CB, v.

21. ‘The Limits of Medieval Biography’, conference at the University of Exeter, July 2003. This ‘conclusion’ is drawn from my notes of the paper delivered by the keynote speaker (Professor Pauline Stafford), which was endorsed by almost all those who took part.

1: The Hatch and Brood of Time

  1. KC, p. 209.

  2. SAC, p. 419.

  3. EHD, p. 132.

  4. Saul, p. 70.

  5. SAC, p. 431; see ibid., p. 419, for the heat of the day and the drinking.

  6. KC, p. 211, says two hundred. Walsingham, however, says six hundred men-at-arms and six hundred archers. See SAC, p. 423.

  7. EHD, p. 135; Saul, p. 68.

  8. SAC, p. 425.

  9. This specific reference dates from many years later. See Kirby, p. 19. For references to Ferrour as retained in the king’s service, see CPR 1377–81, pp. 126, 586.

10. EHD, p. 135. See Saul, p. 65, n. 39.

11. Dunn, Great Rising, p. 102.

12. See Appendix One.

13. For more on Richard II’s view of the past, see Ormrod, ‘Richard II’s Sense of English History’.

14. Smallwood, ‘Prophecy of the Six Kings’. For an early version, prior to the revised text written in the Brut (written probably on an annual basis up to 1333), see Taylor, Political Prophecy, pp. 160–64.

15. These elements of the prophecy are taken from the transcript of British Library, Harley 746 in Taylor, Political Prophecy, pp. 160–64, not the later version (c. 1333) in Brut, i, pp. 72–6

16. Brut, i, p. 75.

17. Froissart, ii, pp. 678, 709. Because of the timing of this anecdote, it seems probable that Burghersh was blaming the eventual rule of the lamb on the immorality of the woman whom the prince had married, Richard II’s mother. Either the lamb was a consequence of the union, or the prince would be judged for marrying an immoral woman.

18. Revolution, p. 140.

19. Morgan, ‘Apotheosis of a warmonger’; PK, p. 394.

20. Keiser, ‘Edward III and the Alliterative “Morte Arthure”’.

21. PK, pp. 427–9.

22. PK, p. 266.

23. Alison McHardy, ‘Personal portrait’, p. 11.

24. McHardy, ‘Personal portrait’, p. 12.

25. Froissart, ii, p. 166.

26. The Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (Aldine ed., 1845), v, p. 283. The last line has been modernised slightly, from ‘Nas sene so blissfull a tresore’.

27. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 46.

28. Wylie, iv, p. 331.

29. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 46.

30. Goodman, Katherine Swynford, p. 11. He suggests that Blanche, being so named, might have had the duchess as her godmother. If so she must have been born before 1368, and been older than Thomas. However, it is possible that another Blanche stood as her godmother, or that she was named after the late duchess by her mother. Given-Wilson & Curteis, Royal Bastards, p. 148, notes that John stood godfather to her, but states that she was younger than her brother.

31. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 49. He had married Constanza in September 1371. He was authorised to use the Castilian royal title in January 1372.

32. As noted in Goodman, Katherine Swynford, p. 11, John’s return in November 1371 – the same month as Sir Hugh Swynford died – almost certainly rules out the often-mentioned possibility that they started their affair during her husband’s lifetime.

33. For example, Register 1372–76, i, pp. 208–9, 211.

34. ODNB, under ‘Mowbray Thomas (I)’.

35. For Richard’s character see McHardy, ‘Personal portrait’; Saul, chapter seventeen.

36. At the age of seventeen Richard built a small lodge on an island in the Thames near Sheen Palace, which one can only see as an attempt to remove himself from court life and find either privacy or isolation. See Mathew, Court, p. 33.

37. In 1372 and early 1373 John spent practically all his time either at Hertford Castle or his London palace, and so would have spent many weeks in Henry’s company. His register has him at Hertford throughout March, in August and from October through to early March 1373, with occasional visits to the Savoy. He spent Holy Week 1373 at Hertford prior to departing with an army to France.

38. Register 1372–76, i, p. 169.

39. The dates of birth of the Beauforts are open to doubt. The dates 1373–7 for all four, put forward by Simon Walker in ODNB (under ‘Swynford, Katherine’), seems to be far too compact a range, especially given John of Gaunt’s absence in France for over a year, not to mention the fact that John’s liaison with Katherine was illicit. Armitage-Smith gives a more likely range of 1373–9. See Armitage-Smith, p. 389.

40. For the illegitimate child by Marie de Saint-Hilaire see Given-Wilson & Curteis, Royal Bastards, p. 147.

41. Register 1372–76, ii, p. 191. The gifts were to (1) his brother the prince, (2) the princess, (3) his wife, the queen of Castile, (4) his brother Edmund, earl of Cambridge, (5–7) Henry, Philippa and Elizabeth, (8) the countess of Cambridge, (9) Lady Poynings, (10) Lady Segrave, (11) his niece, the countess of March, (12) Lady de la Warre, (13) Lady Gourtenay (14) Lord Latimer, (15) Alan Buxeille, (16) Louis Clifford, (17) ‘Monsieur Richard’, (18) Nicholas Sharnesfield, (19) Simon Burley (20) John d’Ypres, (21) William Menowe, (22) John Clanvowe, (23) the queen of Castile’s lady, (24) the governess of his children (Katherine Swynford), (25) John Darcy (26) ‘Senche, a buttoner’.

42. Register 1372–76, i, p. 251.

43. Signet Letters, pp. 4, 51 (Latin and French), 148 (English), 152 (English), 191 (French), 194 (English).

44. See W. L. Warren, King John (1961), pp. 48–9 for the legitimacy of this.

45. Galbraith (ed.), Anonimalle, p. 83.

46. Bennett, ‘Edward III’s Entail’, p. 585; Froissart, i, p. 509.

47. SAC, p. 39.

48. SAC, p. 41.

49. British Library: Cotton Charter XVI 63.

50. Bennett considers the possibility that it is a fifteenth-century forgery and concludes that it is ‘inconceivable’. See Bennett, ‘Edward III’s Entail’, p. 584.

51. There is no indication of the date when Henry was given the courtesy title of Derby; the earliest reference to him as such is the 12 April 1377 writ for the preparation of robes for his knighting at Windsor. See Galway, ‘Alice Perrers’ son John’, p. 243. His father continued to use the title and to receive the profits of the Derby estates for several years.

52. There is no evidence to suggest Henry was in the royal household prior to 1376. However, it would appear that he had already left the custody of Katherine Swynford before 25 July 1376. See Register 1372–76, ii, p. 302.

53. Saul, p. 454, for Arundel. ODNB, under ‘Mowbray, Thomas (I)’ and ‘Vere, Robert de’.

54. Saul, p. 35.

55. For Henry acting as his father’s lieutenant, see Register 1379–83, i, xlvii.

56. McHardy, ‘Personal portrait’, p. 24.

57. DL 28/1/1 fol. 3v. This mentions gilded spangles purchased for the jousts in January 1382. While this payment does not necessarily relate to his taking part in the jousting, just his intention to be there, it has to be noted that spangles were also bought for the 1 May jousts at Hertford, at which Henry definitely did take part. The account includes a payment ‘for six lances for the lord on the last day of April for the jousts which were at Hertford on the first day of May 6s’ on fol. 6r, and goes on to record payments for armour and points for the armour used by Henry on this occasion.

58. Mortimer, ‘Henry IV’s Date of Birth’.

59. Montendre’s 1376 appointment appears in ODNB, under ‘Henry IV’; his wages amounted to a shilling per day in 1381–2. See DL 28/1/1 fol. 7r–9v

60. LC, p. 153.

61. Register 1379–83, i, p. 152 (no. 463); CP, iv, p. 325.

62. On 29 November 1380, at Henry’s request, the king pardoned Thomas Bate of Brynsford for the killing of a man. CPR 1377–81, p. 561.

63. On 7 November 1379 John wrote to his receiver in the county of Norfolk demanding that Henry’s allowance be paid to Hugh Waterton, Henry’s treasurer, for the last Michaelmas term. This shows that Henry’s own household had been established by then, but even so it could have operated to support Henry while he was with the king, in the same way that Henry had his own household and budget even when he was in his father’s household. Further evidence is required for us to be certain of Henry’s independence from Richard’s household by this stage.

64. For the minstrels see LK, p. 16. For the inclusion of the king in Henry’s list of annual 1 January gifts, see for example DL 28/1/2 fol. 17r; DL 28/1/4 fol. 18r.

2: All Courtesy from Heaven

  1. See ODNB, under ‘Henry IV’, for the date of 5 February. The article in the same work on Thomas of Woodstock states that the marriage ‘undoubtedly took place in 1380’.

  2. Kirby, p. 17.

  3. Holmes, Estates, p. 24.

  4. See Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 276, for a discussion of Froissart’s reliability on the haste of the wedding.

  5. Kirby notes that the Inquisitions Post Mortem relating to her father’s estate (he dying on 16 January 1373) give her age as two, three or four. On 22 December 1384 she proved herself to be of age (fourteen). See Kirby, p. 18 n. 1. In addition, Mary made an age-related Maundy Thursday payment in 1388 to eighteen poor women (DL 28/1/2 fol. 26r) It would appear almost certain, therefore, that she was born in late 1369 or early 1370, and so eleven years old at the time of her marriage.

  6. Alexander & Binski (eds), Age of Chivalry, pp. 501–4.

  7. Summerson, ‘English Bible’.

  8. Register 1379–83, i, p. 179.

  9. Given-Wilson & Curteis, Royal Bastards, p. 149.

10. DL 28/1/1.

11. DL 28/1/1 fol. 5r. See also Appendix Three for a note on Wylie’s mistranscription of this.

12. DL 28/1/1 fol. 4v. These spangles were made of gilt copper.

13. LK, p. 22.

14. LK, p. 21.

15. For example, Edward III ordered 21,800 gold threads, costing £8 3s 4d, just for two jousting harnesses for a tournament at Clipstone in the first year of his reign, when he was fourteen. See E 101/383/3.

16. E 101/393/10 m. 1.

17. DL 28/1/1, fol. 5v.

18. For a photograph of Edward III’s handwriting, see PK, second plate section; also Charles George Crump, ‘The arrest of Roger Mortimer and Queen Isabel’, EHR, xxvi (1911), pp. 331–2. For Richard II, see Saul, illustration no. 7. The letters are relatively neat but awkwardly formed. For Henry, see C 81/1358 4b.

19. It is cautiously said that he could ‘at least quote a Latin tag’ (Summerson, ‘English Bible’, p. 111). But given the grammar-based education of the period, it is unlikely that he would have learnt to write so well if he had not learnt Latin. He also owned a number of books in Latin, and wrote pithy Latin statements in his own hand.

20. Summerson, ‘English Bible’, p. 113. The Greek gloss might have been supplied by a clerk who came with the emperor of Byzantium in 1400. Several Greek clerks were in the party which went to Eltham, where Henry kept his books, and they spent several months in England. Permission was given to thirteen Greeks, ‘lately sent to the king by the emperor of Constantinople’ to leave England on 29 March 1403 (Syllabus, ii, p. 547).

21. CB, p. 2.

22. Gower, quoted in Grady, ‘Lancastrian Gower’, p. 560.

23. Wylie, iv, p. 138.

24. LK, p. 23; Kirby, p. 203.

25. IH, p. 116.

26. Creton, p. 61.

27. Trowell, ‘Recorder-Player’, pp. 83–4.

28. DL 28/1/2 fol. 9v (cover for his harp [cither]); fol. 25v (strings [cordarum]). Although his wife paid for the strings, she bought a total of forty-eight, first a set of eight, then three dozen and four.

29. DL 28/1/5 fol. 27r.

30. Although musicologists differ in their opinions on whether Henry or his son wrote this piece, it is nevertheless a striking example of what a king was capable of, despite all the other commitments on his time. Wilkins, ‘Music and poetry’, p. 188, states that it seems likely that ‘Roy Henry’ was Henry IV. The authors of Henry’s entry in ODNB agree. On the other hand, some writers (such as the author of the entry in Gothic, p. 157) link the compilation of the manuscript with a musician who may be later associated with Henry’s son, Thomas, and thus supposes that the ‘Roy Henry’ authorship indicates that the two pieces were written after 1413 by Henry V. However, this argument rests on the assumption that the compiler of the manuscript himself knew which King Henry had written it. If the compiler was – as may be reasonably presumed – working from a copy which was simply marked ‘by King Henry’, unless he had first-hand information as to which king had written it he could have done little more than copy his source. Thomas died in 1421; it is thus more likely that someone working for him had picked up a piece of music written by Thomas’s much-loved father and not Henry V, with whom Thomas had a difficult relationship before 1413. In addition, when two kings were likely to be confused, the practice was for ‘King Henry’ to relate to the father and for the author to be more specific when describing the son, e.g. ‘King Henry the son of King Henry’. For these reasons, it is more likely that the composer was Henry IV than his son.

31. DL 28/1/2 fol. 15v.

32. DL 28/1/2 fol. 25v The entry, which follows a payment for harp strings, reads ‘Et pro 1 ferr’ empt’ pro d’na’ pro cantic’ regul’ xd’. See also Wylie, iv, p. 159.

33. Saul, pp. 16, 249–50; idem, ‘Kingship’, p. 45.

34. Reitemeier, ‘Born to be a tyrant?’, p. 147.

35. Saul, ‘Kingship’, p. 48.

36. Saul, p. 76.

37. Tuck, p. 88.

38. This was on 11 July 1382. See Dunn, ‘Mortimer inheritance’, esp. pp. 160–61.

39. Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II and his Grandfather’s Will’, p. 327; Tuck, pp. 72–3.

40. Goodman, ‘Richard II’s councils’, p. 63. Archbishop Stratford had cited the case of Rehoboam in countering the libellus famosas in his argument with Edward III in 1341.

41. Walsingham describes Richard rummaging in the Tower for relics of his ancestors. See Ormrod, ‘Richard II’s Sense of English History’, p. 100.

42. Perroy (ed.), Diplomatic Correspondence, no. 95.

43. PROME, 1383 February, item 18.

44. WC, pp. 44–5. This was attended only by the king and queen, the new chancellor, the treasurer, the keeper of the privy seal, Henry’s uncle, Edmund, and John of Gaunt, but as Henry was in the household of the latter, it is likely that they met.

45. WC, p. 54.

46. Tuck, p. 88; Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II and the Higher Nobility’, p. 121.

47. Henry returned with his father in February 1384, as shown by the king granting on 19 February that Edmund Loveney – presumably a relation of Henry’s clerk, William Loveney – should be relieved of his duties in respect of his age (over sixty years) in response to a request from Henry. See CPR 1381–85, p. 374. John had returned at the start of February. See Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 99.

48. ODNB, under ‘Henry IV’.

49. If the confirmation of the grant from John to Henry of the manor of Soham can be taken as evidence of Henry being with John, then it would appear that Henry did travel north in March 1384. See LC, p. 153. John of Gaunt arrived at Newcastle upon Tyne on 24 March. See WC, p. 59.

50. WC, p. 67.

51. WC, p. 69.

52. SAC, p. 727.

53. WC, pp. 69–81.

54. WC, p. 85.

55. WC, p. 93.

56. Henry may have been with him but, if so, he was there in an unofficial capacity as Richard had not named him on the commission to treat with the French.

57. Tuck, p. 79.

58. WC, p. 113.

59. ODNB, under ‘Joan of Kent’, presumably using SAC, pp. 751.

60. SAC, pp. 755–7.

61. Regarding this summons, see Saul, p. 144, and the articles by Palmer and Lewis there cited.

62. Saul, p. 143.

63. SAC, pp. 763.

64. WC, pp. 127–9; Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 104.

65. SAC, pp. 763.

66. Saul, p. 116.

67. SAC, p. 759.

68. Royal Wills, p. 78.

69. This is the usual interpretation of the thirteen kings (see Cherry & Stratford, Westminster Kings, p. 68). Richard was making oblations to the saint-king Edward the Confessor before this, as shown by his offerings at the shrine on his return from Scotland in 1385(WC, pp. 133). But this ignores Harold II. Unless Harold was included and Richard II not, thirteen is one king too few. On this point, there were in addition two extra large figures (according to HKW, i, p. 528) which might have been St Edmund and St Edward, the two English saint-kings. Both of these kings appear as saints on the Wilton Diptych, and had significance for Richard’s vision of kingship. This explanation would suggest how Richard II and Harold II might have been incorporated into the design: Edward the Confessor appeared as a large figure elsewhere. However, the Issues for this same term (Michaelmas 1385) note that there was an image in the likeness of Richard at the end of Westminster Hall, over which a tabernacle was placed, and also ‘two images in the likeness of the king and “Houell”, these being placed at the end of the king’s great hall within the Palace of Westminster’. See Issues, pp. 228–9. It is likely that the two extra large figures were Richard and the mysterious Houell (Hywel?), and these were separate to the thirteen which would have included Edward the Confessor to Edward III. This is more in keeping with Richard’s character: to present himself separately to his royal ancestors, rather than placing himself simply and humbly at the end of a long line of kings.

70. Palmer, ‘Parliament of 1385’, pp. 481–2.

71. This compromise is known as ‘the Bill’; the original list of demands is known as ‘the Advice’. See PROME, 1385 October, appendix; Palmer, ‘Parliament of 1385’, pp. 483–4.

72. This is different from the commission of nine who had negotiated the compromise, known as the Bill. See Palmer, ‘Parliament of 1385’, p. 485.

73. WC, p. 141. As for the unsuccessful earldoms, Palmer points out that normally all peers were created on the same day. De Vere’s elevation three weeks after the others, together with the lack of financial award, suggests that parliament tried to stop his elevation. See Palmer, ‘Parliament of 1385’, pp. 478–9. He achieved the dukedom of Ireland the following year.

74. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 106.

75. CB, p. 1.

76. CCR 1385–9, p. 56.

77. The date of John’s departure is given as 9 July in WC, p. 165, and 8 July in KC, p. 341.

3: The Summons of the Appellant’s Trumpet

  1. For example, in November 1386, Richard invited the Lords Appellant to drink wine with him in a private chamber at the height of the crisis (LC, p. 27). He dined twice with John of Gaunt in the parliament of 1385, despite trying to have him murdered earlier in the year and accusing him of treason on the Scottish campaign. He also dined with the Lords Appellant after they had executed his friends in the Merciless Parliament.

  2. According to Allmand, p. 7, Henry and Mary were both at Monmouth in the summer of 1386.

  3. The official responsibilities of Waterton and Bache at this time are stated explicitly in DL 28/1/2 fol. 28, dated 24 September 1387.

  4. The names of those who were with Henry are based on those who appear in the accounts of 1387–8 and who had been in his service from an earlier date. See Appendix Three for date of birth of Henry V.

  5. DL 28/1/2 fol. 28.

  6. PROME, 1386 October, item 6.

  7. PK, p. 158.

  8. This response, it should be emphasised, is a statement of Gloucester’s position. There is no record of what he actually said at this time.

  9. The Eulogium continuator states that it was at Michael de la Pole’s request that Richard dissolved parliament. Since we know that Richard left and went to Eltham, it seems reasonable to assume that the two events – de la Pole’s advice and the king’s departure – were connected. SeeEulogium, iii, p. 359.

10. He was not only a son of Edward III, he had formerly been a keeper of the realm, albeit in name alone, at the age of five in 1360, when he was the only one of Edward III’s sons left in England.

11. This date is established by taking Knighton’s ‘three days’ between the meeting and Richard’s appearance in parliament, and working back from 24 October, the date he replaced the chancellor and treasurer. See KC, p. 361.

12. KC, p. 359.

13. KC, p. 361.

14. ‘Succession’. See also Appendix Two.

15. Contrast this view, in the wake of Richard declaring that the Mortimers were his heirs, not Henry, with McFarlane’s view that we do not know why Henry sided with the opposition in 1387, in LK, pp. 28–9.

16. See Appendix Three. Mary gave birth to their second son, Thomas, in the autumn of 1387.

17. Henry made a grant to his chamberlain, Hugh Waterton, there on 26 June. See CPR 1396–99, p. 70.

18. Although evidence for Henry’s whereabouts is slight (prior to Michaelmas, when his 1387–8 account book starts), he does not appear on the charter witness lists for 1387, nor does he appear in any other context at court.

19. Richard attended this ceremony on this day, according to Saul, p. 171.

20. KC, p. 395. The questions appear in full in the twenty-fifth article against the king’s friends, in the Merciless Parliament. See PROME, February 1388, part 2, item 25.

21. WC, p. 191.

22. WC, p. 207. But see also Saul, p. 175, where it is pointed out that the judges claimed that it had been the earl of Kent who revealed the strategy to the opposition lords.

23. LC, p. 23.

24. WC, p. 209.

25. SAC, p. 831.

26. WC, pp. 211–13.

27. On 18 November 1387 one John Stapeldon received a pardon for murder at his request. See CPR 1385–89, p. 368.

28. See Appendix Three. Mary left London on 25 November. See DL 28/1/2 fol. 25v.

29. See DL 28/1/2 fol. 15v. ‘Medicines brought for the lord [Henry] on two occasions from Master John Middleton when the lord was ill with the pox, 11s 4d’. The account also has ‘to the same master for medicines bought for the lord’s use at the same time, 27s 8d’ and adds payments for medicines for two of Henry’s servants who were ill as well. There is also a payment to a London woman ‘for making a long double-thickness shirt for the lord in the time he was sick of the pox’ (fol. 15r). The two other men in his household ‘gravely ill’ suggests that the form of pox was a viral infection, like chickenpox. As to the question why Mowbray also did not join the Appellants at this point if illness was the reason Henry delayed, it is possible that he was waiting to see what Henry would do. The twenty-one-year-old Mowbray would have looked a very odd fourth Appellant if Henry had not also joined.

30. The longer sections in Henry’s 1387–8 account book (DL 28/1/2), such as those for saddles and repair of saddles, indicate that the entries are mainly chronological. On this basis, although they are mostly undated, we may use the relative positions of entries to develop an approximate itinerary. In almost every case (with one exception) the first item under the section heading was bought in London. It would appear likely therefore that Henry was at London or Westminster for the whole period between the start of the accounts (29 September) and 18 November (CPR 1385–89,p. 368). Leaving London in late November or early December (his wife left on the 25 November), he seems to have passed through Hertford (fol. 16r), on his way to Huntingdon, where he met the other Appellant Lords (12 December). According to the order of his wife’s letters to him from Kenilworth (fol. 26r), he went next to Northampton and then Daventry. His route then seems to have been through Banbury (from which a horse of his was later returned to him), Woodstock (where he paid for an expensive ‘woodknife’), to Radcot Bridge (20 December). Following the encounter with de Vere, he and his fellow Appellants went via Oxford to Notley Abbey, according to Mary’s letters (fol. 26r), and his own nearby manor of Henton (fol. 27r), on the way to St Albans (24–25 December). The Appellants then returned to London on 27 December (SAC, p. 847).

31. LC, p. 29; WC, p. 219.

32. DL 28/1/2 fol. 26r.

33. The best account of the campaign is in J. N. L. Myres, ‘The Campaign of Radcot Bridge, 1387’, EHR, xlii (1927), pp. 20–33.

34. The expense of despatching the letter is noted in DL 28/1/2 fol. 26r.

35. KC, p. 421.

36. KC, pp. 421–5.

37. Mortimer was the earl’s steward and had fought in his retinue earlier that same year. He is not mentioned in Henry’s accounts. The WC indicates that he was sent ahead by Arundel. See J. L. Gillespie, ‘Thomas Mortimer and Thomas Molyneux: Radcot Bridge and the Appeal of 1397’,Albion, 7 (1975), pp. 162–3; WC, p. 223.

38. SAC, p. 839; KC, p. 423.

39. Knighton notes one other man and a boy were killed. KC, p. 425.

40. SAC, p. 843; WC, p. 223.

41. DL/28/1/2 fol. 27v. The total cost of these animals and carts was £81 6s 11d. This is described as replacement of dead animals and wine bought for the lord’s work on fol. 29v.

42. DL 28/1/2 fol. 14r.

43. KC, p. 427.

44. ‘Deposition’, p. 157. See also Gloucester’s confession in PROME, 1397 September, part 2, item 7.

45. WC, p. 229.

46. SAC, p. 847; KC, p. 427. Mowbray was asked to remain at the Tower too.

47. DL 28/1/2 fol. 16v (for the presents). See Note 73 for Richard never forgiving Henry for 1386–8.

48. See for example DL 28/1/2 fol. 4v, 5r, 14v, 15r, amongst other appearances. Bagot also supplied Mary with information about the Cambridge parliament (fol. 29v).

49. Favent’s claim is supported by the exchange of cloth of gold brocade mentioned in Henry’s accounts in relation to this parliament. See DL 28/1/2 fol. 5v. Interestingly, the divorced wife of Robert de Vere (a granddaughter of Edward III) was also mentioned as having this livery. Thomas of Woodstock had been particularly upset by de Vere setting his royal bride (Thomas’s niece) aside.

50. IH, p. 103.

51. It was perhaps inspired by the story of St Edward the Confessor’s appeal of treason against Earl Godwin as related in the popular Brut chronicle. See Brut, i, p. 129.

52. Such language seems to have been chosen specifically to play upon Richard’s liking for Edward II, using terms which were reminiscent of the man who forced Edward II to abdicate, Roger Mortimer.

53. PROME, 1388 February, introduction. All four were sentenced to hang. Berners and Beauchamp were spared the rope on account of their noble birth, Burley on account of his service to the Black Prince.

54. WC, p. 329.

55. DL 28/1/2 fol. 4r.

56. A pardon was granted at Henry’s request on 15 June at Westminster (CPR 1386–89, p. 461). Although this does not prove his presence, his accounts indicate he was still at Westminster on the 9th.

57. DL 28/1/2 fol. 13v. At the end of a section in his accounts dealing with his armour, there is an entry: ‘for ten lances bought on account of the lord’s crossing over into Scotland, each 20d, [total] 16s 8d’. This directly follows a payment ‘for twelve lances bought at the time of riding against the duke of Ireland 18s’. See also DL 28/1/2 fol. 15v: ‘for carriage of the lord’s harness, jugs, tents, lances and other diverse harness from London to Leicester by a cart bought when the lord crossed over towards Scotland 14s 5d’.

58. Syllabus, ii, p. 515; DL 28/1/2 fol. 5r.

59. Froissart, ii, p. 571.

60. Following on from the earlier tentative reconstruction of Henry’s itinerary in 1387–8, it is probable that his journey north to fight the Scots began before he knew about the summons to the Cambridge parliament, which was issued on 28 July. Therefore he had probably left London by the time of Richard’s order on 13 August to the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster to order the people of the duchy to meet the king to ride against the Scots. Henry seems to have travelled from London to Leicester (fol. 15v) and got as far as Lenton in Nottinghamshire, where he bought two horses (fol. 17v), but there is no evidence that he travelled any further. He probably returned via Leicester and Coventry (fol. 8v) to Kenilworth (fol. 6v, 17r) prior to going to the Cambridge parliament which started on 9 September and which he seems to have attended in part at least (CPR 1385–89, p. 510; C 53/162 no. 15).

61. See previous note (for Kenilworth) and Wylie, iv, p. 159 (for Melton). See also Appendix Six.

62. Tuck, ‘Cambridge Parliament’, esp. p. 233.

63. DL 28/1/3 fol. 14v. Henry’s accounts have many references to the Lancastrian ‘esses’ collar, including some very particular descriptions which demonstrate that Henry was using the livery collar during Richard’s reign. See Appendix Seven.

64. 12 Richard II, cap. 13.

65. The parliament started on 9 September and lasted until 17 October. If Henry was there for the duration, it raises the question of when his son John was conceived, considering he was born on 20 June 1389 (implying conception around 27 September 1388). Henry was probably at Cambridge on 28 September, as that day a man was pardoned at his request (CPR 1385–89, p. 510). He may have turned up late as a result of his illness that summer. Mary was at Kenilworth on 16 September (DL 28/1/2 fol. 29r), about seventy-five miles or three days ride from Cambridge. She seems not to have travelled to Cambridge with Henry, for she gave a servant of William Bagot 6s 8d for bringing her news of the parliament. Thus if Henry did not arrive until the 23rd, he could have been at Kenilworth until the 20th, and his son be only a week overdue. Such tardiness would not have been very unusual: Bishop Fordham was still on his way to parliament on the 27th (Tuck, ‘Cambridge Parliament’, p. 232). However, this suggestion does not entirely solve the problem of when Henry attended, for he supposedly witnessed a charter at Cambridge on 16 October (C 53/162 no. 15) and yet granted two charters of his own at Kenilworth on 17 and 18 October (CPR 1396–99, pp. 122, 547). Taking this problem in conjunction with the conception problem, it is more likely that the baby was premature, and that the charter was actually witnessed by Henry sometime earlier in the Cambridge parliament and not enrolled until 16 October, by which time he had returned to Kenilworth.

66. The earls of Arundel and Warwick both witnessed a charter granted at Westminster on 18 November (C 53/162 no. 25). Six days later a pardon for manslaughter was granted at Henry’s request to his clerk, William Loveney (CPR 1385–89, p. 531). The latter request could have been communicated by letter, but it also might indicate his presence. Normally such grants were made when Henry was present.

67. Tuck, pp. 136–7.

68. CCR 1385–89, p. 571.

69. LC, p. 52.

70. Saul, p. 203.

71. CCR 1385–8, p. 676; Saul, p. 203; LC, p. 52. It met in the Marcolf Chamber.

72. Henry did not witness the charter of 28 May at Westminster (C 53/162 no. 17). He was back at Kenilworth by 12 June (CPR 1396–99, p. 518).

73. PROME, 1397 September, part 1, item 53 shows Richard never forgave Henry for Radcot Bridge. Henry’s response in the Record and Process acknowledged this lack of reconciliation.

4: Iron Wars

  1. Henry was still at Kenilworth on 1 July (CPR 1396–99, p. 122). He was at Clarendon on 13 September for a council meeting (PC, p. 11) and at Westminster on 14 November (C 53/162 nos 3, 10 & 11). There is no direct evidence that Henry rode to join John but it would have been usual and respectful.

  2. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 144.

  3. Both Henry and his father attended the meeting of the privy council at Reading on 10 December 1389. See PC, p. 17.

  4. Richard’s request to Jagiello of Poland to grant Henry safe-conduct was dated January 1390. See du Boulay ‘Expeditions to Prussia’, p. 155.

  5. Jean le Maingre (1366–1421) was the second to bear this nickname. His father – also Jean le Maingre – had borne it at the time of Edward III’s 1355 campaign. See PK, p. 315.

  6. Foedera, vii, pp. 665–6.

  7. This is the description in Moranville (ed.), Chronographia, pp. 97–100. Froissart, who describes each set of strokes, or courses, in minute detail, states that each of the three champions had his own war target, but Froissart is mistaken as to dates and many other events in relation to this tournament.

  8. From his poetic description of the jousts taking place in May – not March – it is clear that Froissart was not there himself, but was using a source which had mistakenly copied Martii for Maii.

  9. Froissart gives the same names for the first day’s joust, on Monday 21 March, only differing in that his source mistakenly names Peter Shirbourne, not Thomas Swinburn. Swinburn was shortly afterwards given custody of Guines Castle (E 101/69/1/282).

10. Froissart and the Saint-Denis chronicler differ on the number and names of the participants. They have six in common: Thomas Messendon, Thomas Balquet, John Lancaster, Thomas Talbot, Thomas Clifton and Nicholas Cliston/Clinton [recte: Clifton] (although Froissart mistakenly has John Talbot instead of Thomas and William Clifton instead of Thomas). In addition, Saint-Denis names Thomas Querry, Nicholas Saton [recte: St John?], William Heron [recte: Gerard Heron?] and William Stadon. Froissart names instead William Seimort [Seymour], Godfrey de Seca, John Bolton and two squires, ‘Navarton’ and ‘Sequaqueton’.

11. The Saint-Denis chronicler names thirteen; Froissart names eight of these and adds three others.

12. The Saint-Denis chronicler names seven; Froissart names three of these and adds six others.

13. The anonymous poem ‘The Jousts of St Inglevert’, printed in Lettenhove’s edition of Froissart’s chronicles, agrees that Henry’s joust was towards the end of the tournament but states that it took place on Wednesday 16 April (Tuck, ‘Henry IV and chivalry’, p. 57). However, in 1390, 16 April fell on a Saturday, so this chronology was probably drawn up in a different year, with poetic effect in mind, and is not reliable. The date here is inferred from the Saint-Denis chronicle.

14. Sarcasm seems to have been a common form of wit in the fourteenth century. Edward II as a young man had written letters to his French relations relating how he would give them a pack of slow hounds ‘who can well catch a hare if they find it asleep, for we know that you take delight in lazy hounds’. Similarly, Roger Mortimer had made a sarcastic joke to the earl of Lancaster in 1328: when accused of impoverishing the realm he had replied that if Lancaster knew how to enrich them, he would be welcome at court. See Mortimer, Greatest Traitor, p. 214.

15. Expeditions, p. 34. As for the Lord de Saimpy taking no further part, this is implied by the two other knights alone taking on challengers after Henry’s company met them.

16. Saint-Denis is the source for this compliment. The date adopted here contradicts most writers on the subject. The jousting did not begin on 1 March, as some chronicles state, but on 21 March. Obviously it went on beyond the end of the month. If the tournament actually lasted ‘thirty days’, however, the first day was the first of three days of ceremonies and feasts, i.e. 18 March (according to Saint-Denis). Wednesday 13 April was the twenty-seventh day. Froissart (although his source left after the first four days) states that the English departed from Calais on a Saturday. The Saturday after the 13th would have indeed been the thirtieth day of the tournament. Henry would have had an obligation to be at Windsor for the Order of the Garter feast on 23 April, and so probably did not leave any later than this. The Saint-Denis chronicler notes Ralph Rochford, Thomas Toty and John Dalyngrigge – all esquires in Henry’s service in 1390 – jousted on the last day of the tournament, and so Henry probably remained for the duration.

17. Moranville (ed.), Chronographia, pp. 97–100.

18. Expeditions, p. 1. His accounts and other documents at this time normally only name him as earl of Derby. The writ ordering their auditing (ibid., p. 2) also has all four titles, so it was probably in regular use by 1390.

19. Du Boulay, ‘Expeditions to Prussia’, p. 162. Richard had certainly tried to restrict some of those taking part in the St Inglevert jousts from going on crusade. See Foedera, vii, pp. 665–6.

20. The situation was a complicated one, and never static. For a background on the shifting alliances see du Boulay, ‘Expeditions to Prussia’, pp. 156–60, especially p. 158, where the question of whether this was really a crusade is discussed.

21. Details of the participants in the Prussian crusades have been drawn from Keen, ‘Chaucer’s Knight’, pp. 50–56; LC, p. 2.

22. C 53/162 no. 2. The date conflicts with Expeditions, xxxv and xlii, but the charter witness list in this case is a more reliable guide than Toulmin Smith’s estimate.

23. Expeditions, p. 19.

24. Expeditions, pp. 21–2.

25. PK, p. 346.

26. For example, in August 1403 his cousin the duke of York gave him a present of pike, bream and tench; that same year he gave him another present of ‘6 fresh salmon and 12 bream’. Wylie, iv, p. 206.

27. Expeditions, pp. 19–20.

28. There is no indication that his family came ‘to see him off’. But he and Mary did give alms together at Lincoln, and the amounts they gave were large for oblations: 10s and 6s 8d. Furthermore these payments appear just after those for getting the ship ready. SeeExpeditions, p. 27.

29. The three hundred men is often quoted and disputed. It is probably not an overestimate, if one takes into consideration menial servants and also the number of sailors on the boat.

30. According to the Saint-Denis chronicler, Thomas Swynford fought with Henry in his party; Peter Bucton and Richard Dancaster took part on the next day of jousting, and Thomas Toty, John Dalyngrigge and Robert Rochford took part on the last day. It seems likely that John Clifton and Roger Langford had also taken part in the jousts, as suggested by the chronicler’s references to John Claquefort (which appears as ‘Cliston’ in Froissart) and Roger Long.

31. Henry had his chess board brought to him on the reyse. See Expeditions, p. 49. For his gambling with dice, see ibid., pp. 28, 31, 35, 107, 109, 110, 115. For his backgammon see pp. 113, 178, 264. For jeu de paume, see ibid., p. 263.

32. Expeditions, p. 164.

33. Du Boulay describes this as mainly ‘an archer victory’ but there were few recorded archers in the English force. Having said that, at Vilnius there was an English ‘gunner-archer’, so it seems that some English archers and gunners were not on Henry’s payroll. This might explain why the sources state that Henry had three hundred men with him and yet many fewer appear in his accounts. On this matter see Expeditions, xliv.

34. Henry later rewarded an English esquire for first planting the flag above Vilnius. See du Boulay, ‘Expeditions to Prussia’, pp. 164–5; Expeditions, p. 105.

35. WC, p. 449.

36. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 148. One of the men, Thomas Rempston, later served in Henry’s retinue, so he was at least half-successful, if not wholly so.

37. Wylie, iv, p. 153.

38. Expeditions, p. 107. Clearly Mary was responsible for naming the boy, as she not only gave him her father’s name, but Henry’s Prussian accounts note he was called Humphrey.

39. The famous declaration by Henry in 1407 that ‘I too am a child of Prussia’ was made to Prussian envoys and may have been a diplomatic nicety. Even so it supports the view here. See du Boulay, ‘Expeditions to Prussia’, p. 153.

40. Expeditions, p. 108. Postage is one of the few services which is actually cheaper in monetary terms today than it was in the fourteenth century.

41. For instance, Henry paid rewards of twenty shillings to ‘diverse French musicians’ who played for him on 10 November. Expeditions, p. 107.

42. Expeditions, p. 114 (one mark) and p. 115 (half a Prussian mark, roughly 3s 2d, according to the calculations directly beneath this entry) were paid to Hans.

43. An earlier (1372) reference to imported ‘beer’ (as opposed to ale) appears in A. H. Thomas (ed.), Plea and Memoranda Rolls 1364–1381 (Cambridge, 1929), p. 147. For references to Henry buying continental ‘beer’ as well as English ale (‘servisia’) seeExpeditions, p. 85.

44. Kirby, p. 33.

45. Expeditions, p. 111.

46. Expeditions, p. 113.

47. Expeditions, p. 116.

48. DL 28/1/3 fol. 23r. See du Boulay, ‘Expeditions to Prussia’, p. 170.

49. He landed at Hull by 30 April, when his war account ends.

50. See for example du Boulay, ‘Expeditions to Prussia’, p. 167, where this question is addressed.

51. WC, pp. 445–9.

52. For the lances see DL 28/1/3 fol. IIV; for the date see ibid., fol. 16v. This was to take place at an as yet unidentified place, Brembeltee.

53. Henry was at London on 7 July, as shown by his giving a gift there (DL 28/1/3 fol. 20v). The Kennington tournament may have been on 10 July, as on or about that day the king gave him two pieces of armour.

54. DL 28/1/3 fol. 18r.

55. DL 28/1/3 fol. 17v.

56. WC, pp. 475, 479, 483–5; SAC, p. 913.

57. DL 28/1/3 fol. 20v (lewt and fithele).

58. DL 28/1/3 fol. 17v. The present included a hundred ‘koynes’.

59. WC, pp. 477; SAC, p. 913.

60. PROME, 1391 November, introduction.

61. On 3 December his horses were led to Hertford. See DL 28/1/3 fol. 16v

5: As Far as to the Sepulchre of Christ

  1. SAC, p. 917.

  2. DL 28/1/3 fol. 20v.

  3. DL 28/1/3 fol. 20v. He gave a mark each to two of John’s minstrels, and to two of his own minstrels.

  4. Although the new calendar year did not start until 25 March, and the new regnal year not until 22 June, it was traditional for lords and ladies to exchange presents on 1 January and call them New Year gifts.

  5. DL 28/1/3 fol. 16r.

  6. DL 28/1/3 fol. 15v. It should be noted that Thomas, duke of Gloucester, also used the swan as a livery badge, it being used in right of the descendants of the Bohun family.

  7. DL 28/1/3 fol. 19r. If the amounts he paid as rewards to the men who delivered these presents is an indication of the esteem in which he held the giver and their present, it is noticeable that Richard’s messenger received only one mark (13s 4d) while the queen’s received £1, and so did the duchess of Lancaster’s and the countess of Hereford’s valets. His father’s messenger, Master Ludvig the goldsmith, received £2. To the duke and duchess of Gloucester’s and Thomas Mowbray’s valets he gave a mark each, and to his sister’s half a mark.

  8. King’s Council, p. 493.

  9. WC, p. 485; King’s Council, pp. 494–5.

10. Armitage-Smith, p. 346; Froissart, ii, p. 516; Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 150. It should be remembered that Henry was not an official member of this embassy.

11. See Froissart, ii, p. 518, for the full extent of these precise arrangements.

12. Henry sent ahead to his London wardrobe to send him six horses at Rochester on 18 April, so he had returned by then. DL 28/1/3 fol. 16v–17r.

13. After returning from Calais, Henry attended the Order of the Garter festivities at Windsor on 23 April, then returned to London where he was on 10 May (DL 28/1/3 fol. 18v, 20v). I have not found any definitive evidence that he was at Stamford, but it is likely in view of his father’s presence, and the fact that so many gentry were summoned. See WC, pp. 489–91.

14. WC, pp. 493–5.

15. See for example the list of creditors in DL 28/1/3 fol. 21v.

16. Expeditions, xlvii.

17. Expeditions, p. 161.

18. Du Boulay, ‘Expeditions to Prussia’, p. 167, states that they met at Danzig but does not cite the source, and I cannot find this in the accounts. The payment of £400 was made at Königsberg.

19. They were the daughters of Blanche de Valois, daughter of Charles de Valois, whose half-brother Philip de Valois was Henry’s great-great-grandfather.

20. Expeditions, pp. 187–8, 194, 260.

21. It was while he was at Prague that he marked the anniversary of the death of Thomas, Lord Clifford, who had died on 4 October 1391 on an island in the Mediterranean on his way to Jerusalem. This may have inspired Henry’s journey, not least because he also gave alms in memory of Thomas when at Rhodes, later on the expedition. See Expeditions, pp. 275, 312; WC, p. 480.

22. In Expeditions, lix, Toulmin Smith mentions that Henry received a pair of leggings embroidered with the king’s livery; when he had them repaired the following year, it was noted that they were a gift from the king. See DL 28/1/5 fol. 15v.

23. Expeditions, p. 207.

24. Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts Relating to English Affairs Existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice … 1202–1509 (1864), p. 33.

25. IH, p. 105. Capgrave states that the doge went with him to Jerusalem. This is not correct.

26. This estimate is based on the presumption that they stopped to pray at Zara principally because it was Christmas Day. The approximate 250-mile stages on the outgoing journey are marked by stops on Vis, Corfu, the Peloponnese, Rhodes, Cyprus and Jaffa. They were eighty-eight days away from Venice, and ten of these were spent in the Holy Land. Probably a few more were spent on Cyprus and Rhodes. This leaves about seventy sailing days, or about five weeks in each direction. Hence the estimate of stopping every six days. It should be noted that they stopped more frequently on the way back. Also it should be noted that it is not clear that they stopped at Cyprus on the way out; Toulmin Smith thought they did not. The anonymous Informacion for pylgrymes, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1500 but written in about 1430, states that John Moreson sailed straight from Rhodes to Jaffa.

27. RHL, i, p. 422.

28. Tuck suggests that they may have travelled by donkeys but no payment for donkeys appears in his accounts. See Tuck, ‘Henry IV and Chivalry’, p. 61.

29. This and subsequent material about the medieval pilgrimages in the Holy Land is from the anonymous medieval printed book, Informacion for pylgrymes (unpaginated).

30. DL 28/1/4 fol. 18r.

31. Expeditions, lxvii.

32. Expeditions, p. 234. Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas, ‘Observations of the Origin and History of the Badge and Mottoes of Edward Prince of Wales’, Archaeologia, 31 (1846), p. 365, mentions some armorial bearings at Venice which include the ostrich feathers, swan badge, esses livery collar and a hart. These are supposed to represent Thomas Mowbray, who died in Venice in 1399. However, although the esses livery collar and ostrich feathers might have belonged to either man, the swan was Henry’s personal badge and the hart was that of his wife. It is possible that this relates to arms left by Henry. Henry’s arms were placed in St Mark’s by Mowbray Herald. Henry also bought collars while in Venice (Expeditions, lxviii, p. 280).

33. Wylie, iv, p. 128.

34. Hinds (ed.), State Papers … Milan, i, p. 2.

6: Curst Melancholy

  1. SAC, p. 945. Although Walsingham states that the king did nothing, he did send the earl of Huntingdon and Sir John Stanley to threaten the insurgents with forfeiture if they created trouble. See Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 153. However, this was a very weak response. See Saul, pp. 219–20.

  2. There are no indications as to Henry’s whereabouts in his own accounts; hence it would appear that he left his own household and joined that of his father soon after arriving in London.

  3. PROME, 1394 January, item 20. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 153, states that Talbot was captured prior to this interrogation, which took place some time before the January 1394 parliament, but he was still at large at the time of the parliament, as Richard gave orders for him to be apprehended. See Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 172, n. 46, for John of Gaunt’s whereabouts. A detailed note of proceedings against Talbot appears in Tuck, p. 167, n. 3.

  4. John was at Beverley in Yorkshire on 28 August; Henry was at Peterborough on 2 September. See Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 172, n. 46; DL 28/1/5 fol. 16v. He was at Peterborough again on 12 December (CPR 1396–99, p. 501), and probably had simply stayed with Mary there during the intervening period.

  5. DL 28/1/4 fol. 14v–15r. For Thomas Beaufort being equipped at Henry’s expense, see ibid., fol. 14v. The date of the Hertford tournament is given on fol. 16v.

  6. DL 28/1/4 fol. 20v.

  7. DL 28/1/4 fol. 18v.

  8. He was still there on 12 January: CPR 1396–99, p. 469.

  9. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 153, quoting DL 28/1/4.

10. DL 28/1/4 fol. 19v.

11. For this argument, see SAC, p. 957; PROME, 1394 January, introduction and item 11. Also see Froissart, ii, p. 495, where the disagreement between Gloucester and Arundel against John over France is mentioned, although it needs to be remembered that Gloucester was one of John’s negotiators in 1393, and so can hardly have been as firmly against the peace deal as Froissart suggests.

12. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 153; Tuck, p. 169.

13. This had been the case in Edward III’s reign even when that meant appointing an infant, as had happened in 1338 (when the keeper, Edward of Woodstock, was only eight), and in 1345 (when Lionel of Antwerp was only six), and in 1359 (when Thomas of Woodstock was only four).

14. CCR 1392–96, p. 325; LK, p. 40.

15. LC, p. 156. Henry gave the collar after his return in 1393; it is shown on Gower’s tomb effigy.

16. It is not certain that Henry returned to Hertford; however as that is where his wife was and where his father returned to (Armitage-Smith, p. 448), it is likely.

17. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 154; Armitage-Smith, p. 429.

18. Armitage-Smith, p. 449; Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 155.

19. There is considerable doubt about the date of Mary’s death, and all we can say for certain is that she died in June or very early July 1394. ODNB states (under ‘Henry IV’) that Mary died ‘perhaps on 4 July, the date her anniversary was celebrated in 1406’. This is supported by WC, p. 521, which states that ‘about the beginning of July the countess of Derby died in childbed and was buried at Leicester’. However, Knighton (KC, p. 551) records that she was buried on Monday 6 July, the Monday being supported by Walsingham (SAC, p. 961), and this is surely too soon after the 4th for her to have died that day. Although the Westminster chronicler states that Anne died on 7 June and was buried on the 9th – dates followed by Goodman in his John of Gaunt (p. 155) – Anne was actually buried on 3 August, as noted by the editors of the WC, p. 520, n. 3. HBC states that Mary died on ‘? 4 June’, but does not explain why this date has been chosen. It may be that the editors guessed that the 4 July date was an error for 4 June, which would allow enough time for the funeral preparations. If so, this would explain why Walsingham mentions Mary’s death after Constanza’s and before Anne’s.

20. It is tempting to say that his naming his first daughter after the mother he had never known says much for his regard for her, despite the tragedy of her death. However, it is impossible to be certain about this. The English royal family, like several medieval families, continued naming traditions in which a lord’s eldest daughter was named after his mother and his second daughter after one of his grandmothers. John had done this in naming his eldest daughter Philippa and his second daughter Elizabeth; Henry followed the same pattern.

21. ODNB, under ‘Henry IV’.

22. See Issues, p. 321, for the likeness commissioned by Henry V. Richard’s commission to the coppersmiths was dated on 24 April 1395. He had shortly before contracted (on 1 April) the masons Henry Yevele and Stephen Lote to make the tomb at Westminster for his wife Anne (Syllabus, ii, p. 527). Payment to Yevele and Lote was made on 14 July 1397 (Issues, p. 264).

23. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 155.

24. This might have been a coincidence, but in a letter in which John protested his honesty and loyalty to the king in connection with the royal estate, and coming so soon after John requested that Henry be recognised as the heir, it may well be that the succession was the key matter discussed.

25. By this time the earls of March were so far behind in the order of succession – habitually given an inferior status to Henry – that they hardly featured on the magnates’ map of the succession. Every potential beneficiary of Edward III’s entail was given precedence over the Mortimers. See ‘Succession’, p. 330.

26. Tuck, p. 166; Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 155.

27. Royal Household, p. 392.

28. PROME, 1394 January, item 20; Tuck, p. 167, n. 3, which details his arrest and escape.

29. LC, p. 155.

30. LK, p. 40.

31. ODNB, under ‘Henry IV’.

32. PROME, 1395 January, introduction.

33. Cronin, ‘Twelve Conclusions’, pp. 292–304; PC, p. 59.

34. He was still in London at the beginning of April. C 53/165 nos 4–5 (dated 30 March and 1 April respectively).

35. DL 28/1/5 fol. 8r. Those who had accompanied him on his crusade who were still with him were John Brother, Robert Crakyll, William Bingley and Master John Nakerer (Expeditions, pp. 112, 133, 137, 141–2). The new musicians were John Alayn, piper, John Aleyn, trumpeter, and Gilbert Waferer.

36. DL 28/1/5 fol. 3r (robe); 26v (gift).

37. F. J. Furnivall (ed.), The Babees Boke (1868), p. 180.

38. DL 28/1/5 fol. 28v; see also Appendix One. He gave alms and clothes to twenty-nine paupers on this occasion.

39. The date Henry sent the messenger was 18 March. See DL 28/1/5 fol. 27r.

40. DL 28/1/5 fol. 9r, 22r–v, 27v, 29r. This suggests she was in her twenty-fourth year at the time of her death, as Henry’s donation to twenty-nine paupers on Maundy Thursday suggests this accountant (or Henry) calculated age as of next birthday.

41. DL 28/1/5 fol. 29r. The curtains are mentioned on fol. 12r. They were taken to Leicester, as shown by a reference on fol. 27v.

42. DL 28/1/5 fol. 29r. The earliest entry in the OED to a close-stool is 1410.

43. King’s Council, p. 504; for the barge, see DL 28/1/5 fol. 28r.

44. King’s Council, pp. 135–7, 504–5 Froissart, ii, pp. 572–7.

45. C 53/165 nos 3 and 10.

46. CCR 1392–99, p. 448.

47. DL 28/1/5 fol. 27v. The journey took him three weeks. Henry’s saddle was repaired while at Plympton. See ibid., fol. 22v.

48. CPR 1396–99, p. 542.

49. For his presence in Exeter, see DL 28/1/5 fol. 27v. The messenger was on the road for thirteen days and left London on 24 October. Henry was probably in London from 28 November to 23 December, during which time he was paying his London bargemen (fol. 28r). Cotton and a urinal were bought for him in London on 4 December (fol. 30r.).

50. Henry ordered new lances to be bought for the joust at Christmas at Hertford. DL 28/1/5 fol. 22v. There are fewer payments than usual in this account.

51. HA, ii, p. 219. Although Walsingham mentions that Richard held Christmas at Langley, and that this was where he met John, it was not necessarily at Christmas that the meeting took place. Richard stayed at King’s Langley until 7 January. See Saul, p. 473.

52. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 156.

53. See the articles on ODNB (under ‘John of Gaunt’, ‘Swynford, Katherine’), and Goodman, Katherine Swynford.

54. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 156.

55. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 157.

56. C 53/166 nos 4 & 5.

57. As stated in Froissart, ii, p. 610.

58. This was when he witnessed a royal charter at Westminster. C 53/166 no. 6.

59. Wylie, quoting Michael Ducas, Historia Byzantina (1649), states that Henry was present at Nicopolis, in command of 1,000 archers. There is no corroboration of this, however. Froissart does not mention Henry’s participation on the Nicopolis Crusade, and nor is there any reference in his accounts. In addition, he could not have fought on 25 September at Nicopolis (in modern Bulgaria, about seventy-five miles from Bucharest) and been at Calais in early October. His accounts mention the purchase of medicines for him early in 1396, which might more correctly explain his absence from court. See Wylie, i, pp. 6, 157; iv, p. 171.

60. Fier-a-Bras de Vertain was given a grant for life of forty marks a year on 7 July 1396. Presuming that this precedes his visiting Henry, it is reasonable to connect Henry’s appearance at court on the 25th with the king’s refusal (at the request of John of Gaunt) to allow Henry to depart. SeeFroissart, ii, p. 610; CPR 1396–99, p. 12.

7: By Envy’s Hand and Murder’s Bloody Axe

  1. Froissart, ii, p. 618. For Henry’s expenses in Calais, see DL 28/1/9 fol. 4r–8v.

  2. Saul, p. 229. There is a detailed description of the meeting in Annales, pp. 188–94.

  3. Froissart, ii, p. 618; DL 28/1/9 fol. 4r (for Henry at Saint-Omer).

  4. He was at Dover Castle on 15 November. CCR 1396–99, p. 73.

  5. DL 28/1/9 fol. 5r (hay bought for his horses at Dartford, 19 November).

  6. DL 28/1/9 fol. 13v.

  7. DL 28/1/9 fol. 7v.

  8. For example, the gifts of velvet from the count of Virtue in DL 28/1/5 fol. 9r–v (for the year 1395–6).

  9. Hinds (ed.), State Papers … Milan, i, p. 2. This relates to Henry before his exile. Negotiations probably began in late 1397, as the marriage was a rumour circulating in Siena in early March 1398. See Bueno de Mesquita, ‘Foreign Policy’, pp. 634–5.

10. Froissart, ii, pp. 604–7.

11. On 2 January 1397, Thomas Mowbray and Thomas Holland were preparing a force of 150 lances and 500 archers to help the French; the earl of Huntingdon was also preparing to go. Bueno de Mesquita, ‘Foreign Policy’, pp. 628–9.

12. PROME, January 1397, item 10.

13. For Richard’s mental state, see Saul, especially chapter 17 (and pp. 459–60 for the identification of his ‘narcissism’), and Steel, Richard II. Alison McHardy comments on both of these views in her ‘Personal Portrait’, and adds further very interesting observations. For a view on how the idea of Richard’s insanity arose, see Stow, ‘Stubbs, Steel and Richard II’.

14. Bueno de Mesquita, ‘Foreign Policy’, pp. 630–32; Annales, p. 199.

15. The Evesham chronicler, in CR, p. 54.

16. The earliest reference yet noticed of Edward being described as ‘the king’s brother’ appears in his commission to negotiate with France dated 27 February 1397 (Syllabus, p. 530). Thereafter he is usually so described in official documents, including patent letters and royal charters. He is described as ‘our very dear brother’ in C 53/167 nos 5–10 (23 April, 1 May and 9 May 1399), 16–17 (13 and 24 April 1398). This is also the way he is named in Richard’s will. See Royal Wills, pp. 196, 199.

17. For adoptive brotherhood in medieval England, see Pierre Chaplais, Piers Gaveston: Edward II’s Adoptive Brother (Oxford, 1994), pp. 6–22.

18. For instance Alison McHardy states that it is ‘notable’ that Robert de Vere ‘had no successor’ as Richard’s favourite, ignoring this adoption of Rutland. See McHardy, ‘Personal Portrait’, p. 30. The adoption is also ignored by the author of the ODNB article on Edward and the second edition of CP, and by most other writers on the subject of Richard II’s life.

19. DL 28/1/9 fol. 8r, DL 28/1/9 fol. 21v (Leicester, March 1397); DL 28/1/6 fol. 25v, DL 28/1/9 fol. 12r, 16r (Tutbury April 1397). The foregoing are tentative, based on payments for household expenses which indicate his presence, such as large amounts of expensive fish being delivered to Tutbury between 30 March and 14 April (DL 28/1/9 fol. 21v). He was at Leicester on 1 May 1397 (CPR 1396–99, p. 122). He was still in London on 7 March (DL 28/1/6 fol. 30v).

20. The commission to negotiate a marriage between Henry and Navarre was dated 28 February 1397. Syllabus, p. 530.

21. DL 28/1/9 fol. 15r.

22. The story given in Traïson – that Gloucester and Arundel were arrested following a plot staged with Henry, Warwick and Mowbray, Thomas Arundel, the abbot of St Albans (Thomas of Woodstock’s godfather) and the prior of Westminster – is a muddled version of the events of 1387 rehashed in order to explain why Richard took action against these lords in 1397. Richard’s accusations in 1397 specifically refer to the events of 1387–8. In addition, by 1397, the abbot of St Albans was dead. In addition to a sound debunking of this story in Tuck, pp. 184–6, it is worth noting that the plot is supposed to have been concocted at Arundel, and Henry is said to have been present. It is difficult to find a space in his itinerary to attend a meeting at Arundel. Following the parliament of January 1397 he travelled north and remained in the Midlands until June, when he was at Hertford, and two weeks later he was with Richard at Westminster. He remained with the king for a month and travelled back again to the Midlands until the time of parliament. He could at some point have made a dash to Arundel but there are no signs of such a journey in his accounts, nor of messengers being sent to Arundel.

23. C 53/167 no. 25 (5 July). John Bernard and Philip Young were paid wages by Henry when they were with him in the king’s household from 6 July to 1 August. At 3d per day each, the payment of 13s 6d suggests they were in constant attendance at that time. Similarly Thomas Young and John Aderstone were with Henry in the king’s household (at wages of 4d per day between them) for twenty-seven days (as they received 9s). Thomas Ferro was with Henry in the king’s household from 14 July to 10 August; John Waurin from 6 July to 1 August. See DL 28/1/9 fol. 16r.

24. Saul, p. 367.

25. Sharpe, City of London, Letter-Book H, p. 437.

26. DL 28/1/9 fol. 20v. Richard was at Nottingham on 5 July (Saul, p. 473), having probably just arrived there. He was at Lutterworth on 14 August. For the assembly see Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 159.

27. CPR 1396–99, p. 191.

28. CPR 1396–99, p. 192.

29. There were 312 royal archers in Richard’s personal bodyguard, according to Tuck, p. 187, quoting E 159/175 r. 9 and E 101/42/10. For his raising of two thousand archers in Cheshire, see ibid., p. 186. For chroniclers’ accounts of the presence of two thousand archers see CR, p. 57. The combined forces of the king, John, Edmund and Henry might account for Usk’s statement that there were four thousand archers present.

30. For the date of the announcement, see Tait, ‘Did Richard II Murder the Duke of Gloucester?’, pp. 208–10; Wright, ‘Death of the Duke of Gloucester’, p. 277. Gregory’s Chronicle – a London chronicle – placing the date of death ‘around Bartholomewtide’ (25 August) is an indication of when the news was circulated in London.

31. The duke’s death was certainly announced while he was still alive. This is evident in the confession of a witness to his murder, John Hall, and it is supported by the fact that Richard sent writs to enquire into the estates of the late duke of Gloucester on 7 September, but his confession was made in Calais on 8 September. See PROME, 1399 September, item 92 (8 September); CPR 1391–99, p. 224 (7 September); Wright, ‘Richard II and the death of the duke of Gloucester’, pp. 276–7.

32. PROME, 1397 September, item 1; Vita, p. 138. The biblical quotation is from Ezekiel, chapter 37, verse 22.

33. Tuck, p. 190.

34. CR, p. 56.

35. The order of events followed here is that from the monk of Evesham’s chronicle. This contradicts the order of the parliament rolls, but makes better sense. See CR, p. 57; PROME, 1397 September: introduction.

36. That this was choreographed in advance is made very likely by the fact that Bussy had been with the king throughout that summer, and had been one of the knights present at the arrest of Thomas of Woodstock.

37. The parliament rolls note only four, but the impeachment of Mortimer and Cobham followed.

38. PROME, 1399 September: appendix, quoting A. H. Thomas & I. D. Thornley (eds), The Great Chronicle of London (1938), pp. 76–7.

39. CR, pp. 54–60.

40. PROME, 1397 September, appendix. This was probably a private vendetta, but Hawkeston was pardoned by Richard in October 1398 and continued to serve and be protected by Richard, regardless of this act of murder.

8: The Breath of Kings

  1. DL 28/1/6 fol. 22v.

  2. I am very grateful to Dr Margaret Pelling for the information about bezoar stones.

  3. PROME, 1397 September, item 53.

  4. This plot has been seen as doubtful by some historians, partly because of the creation of Henry as duke of Hereford has inclined them to believe that Henry was in favour in 1397 (Tuck, pp. 184–5), and partly because of the unlikelihood that Thomas Holland, duke of Surrey, should seek to encompass the destruction of his uncle John Holland, duke of Exeter, or that William Scrope should try to plot against his erstwhile friend, John of Gaunt (Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 162). As has been shown in the main text, even the award of a dukedom is not good evidence of favour under the dissembling Richard. With regard to the other objections, the disinheritance of the Lancastrians through the reversal of the pardon against Thomas of Lancaster goes some way to bolster Henry’s claim. Wiltshire and Salisbury (two of the antagonists) were not of Lancastrian descent but most of the victims were. John Holland’s wife was, being Henry’s sister. So too was Thomas Mowbray. John Beaufort was inclined to support the Lancastrians, being Henry’s half-brother. William Scrope – newly raised to an earldom – simply, gratefully and sycophantically did what he thought the king wanted him to do, regardless of his earlier friendship with John. So did Surrey. Richard’s cousin and adopted brother, Edward, duke of Aumale, is the one whose position is not clear. He was not of Lancastrian descent, and in 1399 Bagot claimed at his trial that Edward had expressed a wish for Henry’s destruction. His inclusion amongst the intended victims is as yet unexplained.

  5. Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II, Edward II’, p. 563. It is not clear when Henry told John of the conversation with Mowbray. On 19 November, Henry had spent a day with the king at Woodstock; on 12 December he was at Peterborough (DL 28/1/10 fol. 9r; CPR 1396–99, p. 501). It is most likely that he met Mowbray and had this conversation when returning to London in early December. His accounts mention a two-day trip from London to Windsor in December, and such a journey would have taken him through Brentford. He had met his father by Christmas at the latest, for both men were at Leicester on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (CPR 1396–99, pp. 535, 513; Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 161).

  6. This was probably at Christmas. Henry and his father were at Leicester, Richard at Coventry, just fourteen miles away. See CPR 1396–99, pp. 535, 513; Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 161; Saul, p. 473.

  7. Annales, p. 219.

  8. Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II, Edward II’, p. 559. This is also mentioned in Adam Usk, p. 49.

  9. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 163. Bagot received a livery collar and other gifts from Henry in 1387. See TNA DL 28/1/2 fol. 4v, 5r, 14v, 15r.

10. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 163; Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II, Edward II’, p. 559.

11. CPR 1396–99, p. 280. This was dated 25 January 1398. It is noticeable that this was granted before the session of parliament. It therefore was not covered by the same special protection against revocation which Richard afforded all the Acts of the forthcoming parliament. At the time of granting this pardon Richard may already have been planning to revoke it.

12. PROME, 1397 September, item 44.

13. PROME, 1397 September, item 54.

14. Traïson, p. 142.

15. CCR 1396–99, p. 249.

16. Those standing bail are named in Traïson, p. 142.

17. Adam Usk, pp. 39–41.

18. DL 28/1/6 fol. 40r. Wool was bought for Henry’s close-stool at Worcester in March (Richard was there on 3 March). Cotton and urinals, bought for him at Bristol, appear in an entry directly after this one, which probably relates to his being there with the king on 27 March (CPR 1396–99, p. 361). Cotton was bought for his close-stool in London on 20 April. For Richard’s itinerary, see Revolution, p. 128.

19. Traïson, p. 147. Henry had prefaced his bill on 30 January with the words ‘making protestation to enlarge or reduce it at all times, and as often as I please or as need may be, saving always the substance of my libel’ (PROME, 1397 September, item 53). Given that he did ‘enlarge’ his accusation at Windsor, it seems likely that he already knew in January what he would later say: that Mowbray was responsible for bringing about the death of his uncle, Thomas, duke of Gloucester.

20. Froissart, ii, p. 661.

21. CR, pp. 103–4. The date originally set was a Monday in August. This was later changed to Monday 16 September.

22. DL 28/1/6 fol. 40r–v. The first instance is spelled Astirlabr’ de laton and the second Astirlabl’ de laton. For Richard’s astronomical quadrants, see Revolution, p. 140.

23. DL 28/1/6 fol. 40v.

24. DL 28/1/6 fol. 41r.

25. DL 28/1/6 fol. 42r.

26. DL 28/1/6 fol. 41r.

27. Brian Robinson, Silver Pennies and Linen Towels (1992), p. 28.

28. Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II, Edward II’, p. 565.

29. Froissart, ii, p. 663.

30. DL 28/1/6 fol. 43r.

31. Froissart, ii, p. 664.

32. Revolution, p. 125; CPR 1396–99, p. 499.

33. DL 28/1/10 fol. 20r; DL 28/1/6 fol. 40v (4 & 9 July, London). John was at Rothwell on 17 July (Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 165). Henry’s house in Bishopsgate Street appears regularly in his accounts. On this folio there is a payment for a key for the keeper of the close-stools of the lord in this house. He also had a house in Holborn. His wardrobe office was based at Barnard Castle at this time; previously it had been in Coleman Street. For his other houses, see Wylie, iv, p. 140.

34. CCR 1396–99, p. 324. Mowbray’s gaoler at Windsor was ordered at the same time to release him for the purpose of meeting the king. Mowbray had previously been transferred from Windsor to the office of the king’s wardrobe in London, which is probably why Froissart states he was a prisoner in the Tower. He was taken back to Windsor for the Garter ceremonies by Richard, and probably remained there afterwards, until July. See Revolution, p. 125.

35. Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II, Edward II’, p. 566.

36. The description of the duel is taken from Traïson, pp. 142–62.

37. Froissart, ii, p. 663.

38. Froissart notes the superior arms of Henry over Mowbray. See Froissart, ii, p. 663.

39. Adam Usk, p. 51; Traïson, p. 151.

40. This quotation is a composite of the two versions, one in Traïson, pp. 156–8, and the other in PROME, 1397 January, part 2, item 11. The latter is written in retrospect and had been slightly modified here for the sake of consistency.

41. There was a precedent for Richard’s actions. The first Duke Henry had claimed that Otto, duke of Brunswick, had tried to ambush him while on crusade in 1351–2, and had challenged him to a duel at Cologne. The French king, John II, had tried to reconcile both parties, just as Richard had Henry and Mowbray, but had failed. The duel had then gone ahead, in Paris. But at the last moment, when both Henry and Otto were mounted and about to charge, John decided that the quarrel was of insufficient importance to justify bloodshed, and took the matter into his own hands. Richard had now employed the same strategy to discredit both Henry and Mowbray.

42. Strohm, Hochon’s Arrow, p. 83, quoting Hardyng.

43. CPR 1396–99, p-514; Traïson, pp. 158–9. They were at Nuneaton with Richard on the 20th.

44. Kirby, p. 49, Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 165, and Revolution, p. 135, all agree with Shakespeare on this point. They might be right, but I have yet to find any evidence of such a commutation. Henry’s charges against Richard in 1400 only mention the ten-year period.

45. DL 28/1/6 fol. 36r. Mary had had her Latin primer repaired when in London in 1387 just before Thomas was born.

46. DL 28/1/6 fol. 24r. Henry’s present to Richard in this year was a gold tablet with an image of St John the Baptist. St John was one of Richard’s favourite saints. See Revolution, p. 130.

47. CPR 1396–99, p. 425.

48. Syllabus, ii, p. 533; CPR 1396–99, pp. 469–70, 499, 537.

49. Froissart, p. 667.

50. Revolution, pp. 123–4.

51. Revolution, p. 130; CR, p. 31.

52. LK, p. 47; Revolution, p. 185.

53. Kirby, pp. 49–50.

54. Kirby, p. 49; Syllabus, ii, p. 533.

55. Froissart, ii, p. 674.

56. Froissart, pp. 668–9.

57. Wylie, iv, p. 138.

58. CR, p. 106.

59. Froissart notes that she was twice widowed but states that she was not more than twenty-three; she was born in 1367, the same year as Henry.

60. The date of this address is difficult. Revolution, p. 137, suggests it might have been an added task of Salisbury’s mission at the end of October. Creton gives the date as Christmas. See Creton, p. 171.

61. Froissart, ii, p. 680.

62. Although Froissart states that the marriage proposal postdates the death of John of Gaunt, the earl of Salisbury’s authority to go to Paris dates from late October (Revolution, p. 137; Syllabus, ii, p. 533). It also makes sense chronologically if Henry made plans to leave France after his marriage plans had collapsed; it would be strange if he was planning to leave France before concluding the arrangements.

63. Froissart states the letter was carried by one ‘chevalier Dinorth’ (Froissart, ii, p. 675). This was probably John [de] Norbury. His name sometimes appears in contemporary records as ‘Northbury’.

64. PROME, 1399 October, appendix; Revolution, p. 139.

65. About twenty years later, the Scottish chronicler Andrew Wyntoun wrote an account of the final meeting between Richard and John. He described the king speaking courteously to the dying duke, and, having comforted him, left on his bed some private letters (Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 166). Given the fact that John was dying, either they must have related to his own past – perhaps some treasonable activity which Richard had discovered – or they must have been connected to his last hopes: his sons’ futures, and in particular his lifelong hope that Henry would inherit the crown. We can only speculate now as to what the letters contained, but the most likely candidates from our knowledge are (1) a document relating to John’s birth, which in 1376 was said to be doubtful (seePK, p. 184). If Richard believed such a document, he might have felt an obligation to remove Henry from the line of succession as Henry was not sufficiently royal. (2) The original of Edward III’s entail, by the terms of which Henry would be Richard’s heir. (3) Edward I’s settlement of the throne made at Amesbury in 1290 (see Appendix Two), by the terms of which Edmund Mortimer would arguably have been the heir.

66. Revolution, p. 141. This is unlikely to be a mistake, due to the positioning of the entry in the account roll.

67. Bennett suggests that John’s request was due to a fear of being buried alive. However, it follows a similar request by Henry, duke of Lancaster, in 1361, who asked that his body not be buried or embalmed for three weeks (Royal Wills, p. 83). Both men were members of the royal family, but both were mindful of fake death announcements concerning members of the royal family. Duke Henry had learnt from the untrustworthy announcement of Edward II’s death in 1327, and John had the additional example of the false announcement of the death of his brother in 1397. Hence John’s request is more likely a consequence of his heir, Henry, being so far away. John probably wanted him to have the chance to confirm that he was actually dead, not simply announced as such.

68. E 361/5. This date is two days after that announced by Richard in January, to accommodate his request for a period of forty days between death and burial.

69. Bagot’s message to Henry in France was sent after a conversation with Richard at Langley in March 1399. Richard was there on 9–10 March (Saul, p. 474) and left soon after for London, where he was on the 15th for the funeral. If Bagot sent his message to Henry in France on or about 10 March, and Henry received it in France, as he later acknowledged, he was not in London on the 15th. Vita, pp. 150–51, confirms that, at the time of the death, Henry remained overseas. The French chronicles do not indicate that he returned for the funeral, rather that he departed only when he returned to England in July.

70. PROME, 1399 October, appendix.

71. Froissart, p. 676.

72. CR, p. 105.

73. Annales, p. 233 (‘vehementer odire’). Walsingham himself had hated John of Gaunt, and so this explanation of Richard’s treatment of John’s son should be given weight accordingly.

74. For Richard’s demand to be addressed as your majesty, and the novelty of this, see Saul, ‘Vocabulary’; McHardy, ‘Personal Portrait’, pp. 20, 23. For his references to Aumale as his ‘brother’ see ‘Succession’, pp. 333–4.

9: The Virtue of Necessity

  1. ‘Succession’, pp. 333–4.

  2. See the remarks at the end of Appendix Two.

  3. Manning (ed.), John Hayward’s The Life and Raigne, pp. 1–5.

  4. Vita, p. 150; Revolution, p. 148; CR, p. 31.

  5. This order was made the day after Henry’s pardons were revoked, 19 March 1399. CCR 1396–99, pp. 488–9.

  6. Obviously he would not have known the date of the death until some time later. Nevertheless he may well have claimed he had seen this vision when he saw Henry.

  7. CR, p. 106.

  8. Monstrelet, i, pp. 18–19. This is inaccurately dated 17 June 1396.

  9. CR, p. 112.

10. See Monstrelet, i, p. 21: ‘the principal cause of your seeking our friendship, and requesting this alliance to be made, was your dislike of your uncle of Burgundy, which we can prove … ’. This was in Henry’s second letter to the duke, of April 1403. In 1407 Louis was murdered by the duke of Burgundy’s son.

11. See Froissart, pp. 686–8; CR, pp. 32, 111.

12. CR, p. 111.

13. Robert Bruce had been the last man to defeat the king, but, by his own definition, he was a Scot and owed no allegiance to Edward II. Simon de Montfort had been the last Englishman to do so, at the battle of Lewes, in 1264.

14. The date is open to debate, but 4 July is the most likely, especially as York’s letters of 28 June presumed that Henry was still in France, and these were probably issued very shortly after the intelligence was received. See CR, pp. 33, 118; Revolution, p. 154; Saul, p. 408; Kirby, p. 54.

15. CR, p. 32. Edmund believed Henry was in Picardy at the time, and about to attack Calais first.

16. Biggs, ‘Edmund Langley, duke of York’, p. 258.

17. For Walsingham’s estimate of no more than fifteen ‘fighting men’, including the knights of his own household, see CR, p. 117. He adds that there were no more than ten or twelve ships. Adam Usk estimates that he had no more than three hundred men with him in all. For the estimate of ‘perhaps no more than a hundred or so’, see Revolution, p. 154. The Evesham chronicler notes that Henry had sixty followers, but he includes men who were already in England; the Kirkstall chronicler states one hundred. Ten ships does suggest more than a hundred men, but of course Walsingham might have been mistaken in the number of ships.

18. Ravenspur is directly across the estuary from Grimsby. If the message that Henry had landed travelled from Grimsby, it would have taken more than two days to cover the 161 miles to London. Urgent messages normally travelled about sixty miles per day. The fastest on record – news of the death of Edward I – travelled at over eighty miles per day, but this was a royal messenger who would have been able to benefit from changes of horses at a number of places. If the weather was good and there was a local official who wished to send the news at high speed to London, the message would have taken between two and three days to reach Edmund. On 7 July Edmund ordered the defence of Nottingham Castle. This might relate to Edmund’s receipt of the news of Henry’s landing.

19. The letters are mentioned by the Saint-Denis chronicler. See CR, p. 110.

20. CR, p. 34; Biggs, ‘Edmund Langley, duke of York’, p. 259; Castor, King, Crown and Duchy, p. 26.

21. CR, p. 192.

22. Taylor (ed.), Kirkstall Abbey Chronicles, p. 122.

23. For numbers in Henry’s paid army, see CR, pp. 252–3.

24. CR, p. 118, quoting Walsingham. The translation has been slightly modernised.

25. CB, p. 11; Neville, ‘Scotland, the Percies and the law’, p. 82; Arvangian, ‘Northern Nobility and the Consolidation’, p. 123.

26. CR, pp. 40, 192, quoting the Dieulacres chronicler. The ‘relics of Bridlington’ might refer to a portable reliquary, or even a bible taken from Bridlington Priory; it does not mean necessarily that he swore the oath at Bridlington.

27. Revolution, p. 155; Sherborne, ‘Perjury’, p. 220.

28. CR, p. 192; Creton, p. 180; Sherborne, ‘Perjury’, p. 218.

29. CR, pp. 194–5; Sherborne, ‘Perjury’, p. 219.

30. See Appendix Seven.

31. CR, p. 166, quoting Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 59.

32. Traïson, pp. 180–81.

33. Biggs, ‘Edmund Langley duke of York’, p. 261, n. 43.

34. CR, p. 35; Revolution, p. 159; Biggs, ‘Edmund Langley, duke of York’, p. 260; Annales, p. 244.

35. Traïson, p. 186.

36. Traïson, p. 186.

37. Adam Usk, p. 139.

38. Wylie, iv, p. 138.

39. Wylie, iv, p. 145.

40. CR, p. 156.

41. There are four reasons underlying this suggestion for Edward of York and two for Thomas Percy. With regard to Edward: his father had already decided long before their meeting at Berkeley Castle to capitulate to Henry, and it is likely that he communicated his decision via a messenger to his son in Ireland. Second, in Ireland Edward had acted against Richard, doing his best to impede Richard’s return (according to Creton, who was with Richard and Edward in Ireland; see Creton, p. 55). Third, even though Edward was his adoptive brother, Richard left him behind when he fled north. Fourth, he immediately joined Henry after Richard’s flight. With regard to Thomas Percy, not only had his brother and nephew already joined Henry, he too rushed to join them after Richard’s flight. So, in looking for the protagonists behind the plot in South Wales against Richard, these two men are the prime suspects.

42. Sherborne, ‘Perjury’, p. 221. Henry’s role as steward is also mentioned by the Dieulacres chronicler shortly afterwards. See Revolution, p. 163.

43. Nicolas, ‘Badge and Mottoes’, p. 365.

44. Creton, p. 125. Adam Usk thought Archbishop Arundel was at Conway in person, but he might have simply been following the Record and Process, which was probably created to suggest this. It is very unlikely that Arundel was present. See CR, p. 38; Sherborne, ‘Perjury’, pp. 229–30.

45. It is worth noting that, although historians have frequently claimed that Northumberland perjured himself by his promises to Richard, it is likely that he acted in good faith. He had been present at Doncaster when Henry had promised not to seize the throne, so he probably believed that the promises he made now to Richard would be fulfilled. And a parliament was summoned to take place at Westminster, so both elements of his promise were honestly made.

46. CR, pp. 145–7.

47. Creton, pp. 155–63. Traïson, pp. 202–6, supports this, and greatly amplifies Richard’s lament.

48. Revolution, p. 173; Traïson, p. 212.

49. Creton, p. 179; Traïson, p. 215.

50. Creton, pp. 180–81; Traïson, p. 215.

51. This point was made by David Starkey in his television history series Monarchy. However, Henry did not have to be king to ‘do what he could’. Similarly his appointment of Northumberland as warden of the Scottish Marches on 2 August is not proof of kingly intentions (as claimed in Boardman, Hotspur, p. 99), being a necessary expedient in view of the Scots’ threat, and in line with Henry’s ‘sovereign’ power (not necessarily the same as ‘royal’; see Appendix Seven).

52. PROME, 1399 September, part 1, item 53. In addition, two chronicles note Henry’s claim through descent from Henry III, see CR, p. 166; Adam Usk, p. 71.

53. One of these chronicles, the continuator of the Eulogium, mentions this claim in relation to John of Gaunt’s request for Henry to be recognised as heir to the throne in 1394. However, this is hardly likely to have been voiced at this time as it would imply that Richard himself was not the legitimate king in 1394. Rather it should be regarded as an interpolation by the continuator’s successor, added to the first-state chronicle in or after 1400, by a writer who presumed that the Crouchback legend underlay John’s claim that Henry should be given preference to the earl of March, and that this was why Henry had claimed the throne by inheritance from Henry III in 1399. See Eulogium, iii, pp. 369–70; ‘Succession’.

54. Adam Usk, pp. 65–7.

55. Royal Wills, p. 16.

56. Philip Vache, who had served Richard II, was possibly a surviving witness. He (or a man of the same name) entered Henry’s service in 1403. Given-Wilson, Royal Household, p. 290. One of the men with Henry, John d’Aubridgecourt, was the son of one of the witnesses of Edward III’s entail.

57. Foedera, ii, p. 497.

58. SAC, pp. 39–41.

59. See Appendix Two.

60. One account specifically states that Henry claimed the throne as ‘the nearest male heir and worthiest blood-descendant of Henry III’, CR, p. 166. John’s claim in 1199 had prevailed not only over Arthur but also Arthur’s sister, Eleanor, daughter of Geoffrey, John’s older brother. Eleanor died in 1241. Thus, if this can be considered to reflect practice before 1290, Henry III’s throne was inheritable only by and through males.

61. Henry himself used parliament to recognise his settlements of the throne in 1406, contrary to earlier examples. It is also interesting that the Record and Process states that Richard had asked that Henry succeed him.

62. CR, p. 187.

63. This meeting is described in Traïson, pp. 216–18.

64. The council met on or before 28 September. CR, pp. 162–3.

65. Revolution, p. 175. On this day official documents ceased to bear the regnal year.

66. Rumours of Richard’s illegitimacy were in circulation at this time. See Creton, p. 179; Revolution, p. 176.

67. PROME, 1399 October, introduction.

68. CR, p. 165. The Record and Process suggests a more reserved and considered response but this was probably written up some while later, and refracted through the lens of justifying the proceedings.

69. CR, p. 166.

70. One might add the unspoken right of conquest to make the tripartite claim to which Chaucer and Gower allude and of which Wylie made much. Wylie, i, addendum (facing xvi).

71. Creton, p. 201. York and his sons were Richard’s designated heirs, so this may have represented an attempt to circumvent Richard’s settlement of the throne on the house of York.

72. Revolution, p, 183.

73. CR, p. 190–91. As Given-Wilson notes, the outburst is doubtful. Although Carlisle was present, and soon after fell into disfavour, his supposed speech implies that Henry had assumed the throne before Richard had been judged. However, all references to opposition speeches have been removed from the ‘Record and Process’.

10: High Sparks of Honour

  1. CR, p. 185; PROME, 1399 October, item 53.

  2. Adam Usk, p. 73.

  3. Although the number of knights created is not known for certain, at least one well-informed source gives the number as fifty. It is possible that this was a direct reference to the jubilee of the foundation of the Order of the Garter. See Wylie, i, p. 43; Adam Usk, p. 71; Annales, p. 291; PK, pp. 427–9 (for 1349 as the date of the foundation of the Order of the Garter).

  4. PK, p. 21.

  5. Strohm, Hochon’s Arrow, pp. 84–5.

  6. Adam Usk, p. 73. Creton has Westmorland holding the sceptre. See Creton, p. 207.

  7. Creton, pp. 208–9; Adam Usk, p, 73.

  8. PROME, 1399 October, part 1, item 2.

  9. CR, p. 113.

10. For example, RHL, i, p. 23 (a letter to Albert, count of Hainault, dated 1400).

11. For Kingston, see RHL, i, p. 158. For his sons, Henry and John regularly wrote to him with the same salutation, for example: Henry in January 1405 and John several times in 1407 (RHL, ii, pp. 20, 223, 227, 231, 235). It is likely that Henry V picked up his own devotion to the Trinity at least partly as a result of his father’s influence. The younger Henry’s regard for the Trinity is already apparent in his letter of 11 March 1405 (PC, i, p. 249). For Joan, who wrote praying that the Holy Spirit would keep him in February 1400, (see RHL, i, p. 20). Other examples are the letter to Henry from the earl of March in 1404 (ibid., p. 434) and the letter from the officers of the staple at Calais (RHL, ii, p. 283). A systematic search would no doubt reveal many more such references.

12. For example, PROME, 1404 January, item 17; 1406 March, part 1, item 38.

13. Henry certainly used the prince’s feathers in his own seals at this time. Nicolas, ‘Badge and Mottoes’, pp. 365–6.

14. On Edward’s reputation at this time as the greatest king who had ever ruled England see Morgan, ‘Apotheosis’, especially p. 868.

15. Revolution, p. 185.

16. Adam Usk, p. 73. This may have been a misquotation of the second coronation oath, ‘to cause impartial and honest justice and discretion, with mercy and truth, to be done in all your judgements, according to your power’. PROME, 1399 October, part 1, item 17.

17. The letter was dated 2 November, at Linlithgow (RHL, i, p. 10), but Henry’s declaration on 10 November suggests that that was when it was received.

18. When the lords expressed support for his intended expedition, he ‘most graciously thanked the said lords in his own words, and said to them that he would never refrain from committing his body and his blood to this expedition, or to any other for the salvation of his realm, if God gave him life’. See PROME, 1399 October, part 1, item 80. For a full account of the Scottish expedition of 1400, see Brown, ‘English campaign in Scotland’, pp. 40–54.

19. Waurin, pp. 42–3.

20. Revolution, p. 195.

21. For Bucton’s role, see Johnstone, ‘Richard II’s departure from Ireland’, p. 799.

22. CR, p. 202.

23. CR, p. 203.

24. CR, p. 212.

25. CR, pp. 204–5.

26. Disembowelling alive, with the victim’s entrails being burned, had been the sentence meted out by Hugh Despenser on Llewelyn Bren in 1317 and (probably in revenge) by Roger Mortimer on Hugh Despenser in 1326. It was carried out again on Sir Thomas Blount in January 1400, with a particularly graphic description being included in Waurin, pp. 39–40.

27. PROME, 1399 October, introduction.

28. PROME, 1399 October, part 1, item 73.

29. Wylie, i, p. 111. For Knaresborough Castle see Taylor (ed.), Kirkstall Abbey Chronicles, p. 82. Morgan, ‘Shadow of Richard II’, pp. 1–2, gives a selection of the other places mentioned in various chronicles for Richard’s location; given the secrecy surrounding his custody, it is difficult to be certain as to his whereabouts.

30. C 53/167 no. 1. For earlier witnessings, see Given-Wilson, ‘Royal Charter Witness Lists’, esp. tables 7 and 13. For later witnessings, see Biggs, ‘Royal Charter Witness Lists’, pp. 407–23, esp. pp. 417–19.

31. Traïson, pp. 229.

32. Traïson, pp. 233–4.

33. CR, p. 236.

34. PC, i, p. 107.

35. Brut, ii, p. 360; CR, p. 224, n. 1.

36. McNiven, ‘Cheshire rising’, pp. 387–8.

37. Brown, ‘Reign of Henry IV’, pp. 5–6.

38. Waurin, p. 41.

11: A Deed Chronicled in Hell

  1. Waurin, pp. 39–43; Wylie, i, p. 107.

  2. PC, i, pp. 102–3.

  3. Foedera, viii, p. 124.

  4. PC, i, p. 3.

  5. Wylie, i, p. 115.

  6. The early February council minutes would have mentioned the escape if this was the specific reason for their doubt as to the king’s death. Henry made a payment of 100 marks on 17 February for bringing Richard’s corpse to London (Issues, p. 275). The face was clearly exhibited in St Paul’s Cathedral (for two days), and in the main thoroughfare, Cheapside, for two hours, and later at Westminster Abbey, as stated by a number of chroniclers, including the well-informed Walsingham, who states that the cerecloth was removed from his forehead to his neck (Annales, p. 331) and a contemporary London chronicler who seems to have been a witness (EC, p. 21). A very great number of individuals in London saw the corpse (McNiven, ‘Rebellion, sedition’, p. 95). Significantly, the earl of Northumberland and the archbishop of York later issued manifestos attesting to the death. The earl was one of Henry’s most trusted confidants in February 1400 and both he and the archbishop were present at the council meeting when Richard’s death was discussed. They therefore had direct access to information about the physical cause and date of the ex-king’s death. Finally, Jean Creton, one of the few chroniclers who believed that Richard had not died, went to see the supposedly living king in Scotland in 1402 and discovered him to be an imposter (CR, pp. 240–41; Dillon, ‘Remarks’, pp. 78–83). To this we might add the circumstantial detail that, had the imposter really been Richard, it would be out of character for him to exist quietly and modestly in Scotland for so many years.

  7. Respectively, these are the views of Given-Wilson in PROME, 1399 October, introduction; Saul, p. 425; Revolution, p. 192.

  8. For example, see Palmer, ‘French chronicles, 2’, pp. 399–400.

  9. Amyot, ‘Inquiry’, pp. 425–8.

10. Jean Creton returned from Scotland to France in 1402 with a story about Richard’s violent death. See Dillon, ‘Remarks’, p. 78; Palmer, ‘French chronicles, 1’, p, 162.

11. Traïson, pp. 233–4.

12. CR, p. 241. The date has probably been drawn from Walsingham.

13. Brut, ii, p. 360.

14. CR, p. 244.

15. EC, p. 21; ‘Deposition’, p. 174.

16. Adam Usk, p. 91. Usk names the keeper as ‘Sir N. Swynford’.

17. Annales, p. 331.

18. PC, i, xxxi and p. 111. The minute refers to pardons for crimes committed ‘before the feast of the Purification of our lady last past’ (2 February 1400). Although Wylie states that the council minute dates from 8 February at the latest, the CPR text of the letters to the sheriffs by which he derived this terminus ante quem gives their date as 24 February 1400, as Nicolas states, not 8 February as Wylie claims on the basis of Foedera (Wylie, i, p. 115; Foedera, viii, p. 125). As the minute includes so many provisions for the security of the kingdom, it is likely to be connected with the 9 February minutes, which mention Faryngton, the French king’s letter and the likelihood of war. However, Henry was clearly present at the meeting on 9 February, whereas he was not present at the meeting which discussed the eventuality of the king’s death. It is likely therefore that Wylie is right to date this council meeting to 3–8 February, although not for the reasons stated.

19. ‘En primes si R. nadgairs Roy soit uncore vivant a ce que len suppose quil est ordenez soit quil soit bien et seurement gardez pur sauvacion de lestat du Roi et de son Roiaume.’ This appears printed in PC, i, p. 107. The text was checked against the original in the British Library: Cotton, Cleopatra F iii, fol. 14a. It also appears in Strohm, England’s Empty Throne, p. 104. As Nicolas noted at the time of editing this document, it suggests that Henry and the council were bystanders to the death, not the instigators of it. His thoughts on the subject have largely been ignored subsequently, probably because he did not fully explain them. In recent years this document has been construed as tacit advice from the king’s council to terminate Richard’s life (e.g. Burden, ‘How do you bury a deposed king?’, p. 39; Strohm, Empty Throne, p. 104).

20. ‘Quant a le primer article il semble au Conseil expedient de parler au Roi qen cas que R. nadgairs Roy &c soit uncore vivant quil soit mys en seuretee aggreable a les seigneurs du roiaume & sil soit alez de vie a trespassement qadonques soit il monstrez overtement au people au fin quils ent puissent avoir conissance.’ PC, i, pp. 111–12. A similar but briefer entry appears in British Library, Cotton Cleopatra F iii, fol. 14b: this is damaged but seems to say ‘Sur le primer article soit ple au Roi qen cas que R. vivant &c quil soit mys en seurete … [edge of page] les seignurs Et que sil soit mort qadonqes il soit monstrer overtement au poeples quils en puissent avoir conissance.’ The fuller version suggests the matter was deliberated without the king being present.

21. This was usual for council meetings at this period. Harriss, Shaping the Nation, p. 77.

22. If a report of the public execution of the lookalike Maudeleyn had triggered the French king’s belief in the death, Charles would have accused Henry of killing Richard directly. There is no such accusation; rather there is a quiet and sombre reflection on Richard’s death.

23. Bucton took Richard to Knaresborough after the parliament (which ended on 19 November). This seems to be based on first-hand information, as Knaresborough is only eighteen miles away from Kirkstall, and the chronicler adds that he does not know where Richard was taken afterwards, proving he was not reliant on the official version of the death. See Taylor (ed.), Kirkstall Abbey Chronicles, p. 82.

24. Traïson, p. 248.

25. For the nationality of the author, see Palmer, ‘French Chronicles, 1’, pp. 163–4. Palmer suggests he was in the service of the duke of Burgundy, as his dialect is West Flanders, Picard or Walloon. He was based in London as he gives descriptions of places in terms of their distance from the city. He or his source seems to have been with Henry and the militia army on the common outside London on 6 January, as he gives details about the times of people coming and going, the earls of Arundel and Warwick among them. SeeTraïson, pp. 235–6, 248, 253–4.

26. Issues, p. 276. One man to go to Pontefract from London was reimbursed 6s 8d in this same account. The payment to Loveney – £3 6s 8d – indicates that he may have had as many as eight or nine men with him, if they were reimbursed for their expenses at the same rate. This visit must have been after 4 January when Loveney was with the king in London (CCR 1399–1402, p. 34).

27. Rogers, ‘Royal Household’, p. 755.

28. CR, pp. 194–5.

29. Although it should be noted that the fifteen days of starvation in the Percy manifesto was probably an exaggeration. If Richard died on 14 February, and Richard started to go without water on 31 January, then Henry would have had to give the order on 28 January, which is before he could have heard from France about the French king’s belief in Richard’s death.

30. ‘Festiationis causa’. This detail is not in Issues but appears in Wylie, i, p. 115.

31. A garbled version of such a precautionary order might be preserved in the account given in Froissart, which states that Henry promised he would not kill Richard unless he took part in a plot to oust him. See Froissart, ii, p. 708.

32. Wylie, i, p. 117.

33. Creton, p. 221.

34. For example, Burden, ‘How do you bury a deposed king?’; Strohm, Empty Throne, chapter four; Morgan, ‘Shadow of Richard II’.

35. Richard had ordered another tomb to be moved to make way for his, so it would have been quite acceptable for Henry to move Richard and Anne’s tomb to Langley or elsewhere in Westminster Abbey. See HKW, i, pp. 487–8.

36. Duffy, Royal Tombs, p. 157.

37. Issues, p. 276.

38. He was at Eltham on 26 February, 8 and 16 March and 8 April but must have returned to London at some point to attend the Mass for Richard at St Paul’s between 8 and 16 March. Signet Letters, p. 21; Syllabus, ii, p. 538.

39. Details of Henry’s work at Eltham are to be found in HKW, ii, pp. 935–6.

40. RHL, i, pp. 25–7. The offer was for negotiators to meet at Kelso on 5 January. Robert III claimed two months later that he had received the letter too late to send representatives. The first offer had been made in September 1399, before Henry’s accession.

41. RHL, i, pp. 23–5. The letter was dated 18 February, at Dunbar Castle. It would have taken at least ten days to cover the distance to Eltham in winter. Henry’s safe-conduct to Dunbar was dated 8 March.

42. RHL, i, pp. 28–9. The nature of this information was reported by word of mouth and thus is unfortunately unknown to us. Its importance can be gauged from the fact that it could not safely be written in a letter to the king.

43. PC, i, pp. 118–20; Pistono, ‘Confirmation of the twenty-eight-year truce’, pp. 353–65.

44. Brown, ‘English Campaign in Scotland’, pp. 44–5. This is comparable with the size of the armies led to Scotland in 1314, 1335 and 1385.

45. Wylie, iv, pp. 230, 232.

46. Brown, ‘English Campaign in Scotland’, p. 43. Signet Letters, p. 23, states they were offering peace on the lines agreed between Edward I and Robert Bruce. However, there was no such treaty. The text of Henry’s letter, printed in PC, i, p. 123, shows that he did not specify Edward I but ‘our well-remembered ancestor, Edward, formerly king of England’.

47. She had been married to John Holland, duke of Exeter, who had died at the hands of the mob in Essex after the Epiphany Rising.

48. PROME, 1402 September, item 16.

49. PC, i, p. 169.

50. Annales, pp. 332–3; Wylie, i, p. 132. The naval successes included the capture of Sir Robert Logan, the Scottish admiral, and David Seton, a secretary of Robert III, who was carrying letters to France.

51. Eulogium, iii, p. 387; Brown, ‘English Campaign in Scotland’, p. 44.

52. Revolution, p. 203.

53. Rogers, ‘Royal Household’, p. 72–4.

54. Dyer, Standards of Living, p. 263; Rogers, ‘Royal Household’, p. 54.

55. Henry continued southwards until he arrived at Northampton. He may have heard about the Welsh rising earlier in the month, before the proclamation of Glendower. See Vitae, pp. 167, 212, n. 492.

12: The Great Magician

  1. The story of the land dispute which was not settled in parliament comes from Thomas Walsingham’s Annales, p. 333. The letters between Glendower and Reginald Grey are printed in RHL, i, pp. 35–8. See also Glyn Dŵr, p. 102.

  2. Wylie, i, p. 144.

  3. ODNB, under ‘Glyn Dŵr, Owain’.

  4. CPR 1399–1401, p. 555. He was at Shrewsbury on the 15th and 16th, Shifnal on the 18th.

  5. Boardman suggests that Henry might have averted further rebellion if he had ‘made any effort’ to enquire into the grievances of Glendower and the Welsh people (Boardman, Hotspur, p. 119).

  6. Revolution, p. 203.

  7. Wylie, iv, pp. 141, n. 8, 263.

  8. Wylie, iv, p. 263.

  9. Wylie, i, p. 158.

10. Adam Usk, p. 119.

11. Details of the tournament have been drawn from an article by John Priestley, ‘Christmas day and knights’, in the November 2006 issue of Heritage Today, the English Heritage magazine, pp. 28–31. See also Nicol, ‘Byzantine Emperor’.

12. Wylie, iv, pp. 129–30.

13. Issues, p. 282.

14. This figure is drawn from Rogers, ‘Political crisis’, p. 89. Rogers’ claim that this amounted to more than Richard II’s household had spent in its last three years does not seem to be borne out by Given-Wilson’s more recent study. See Royal Household, pp. 76–92, 94 (in particular), 107–8, 271.

15. Wylie, iv, pp. 315–18. According to Given-Wilson in PROME, 1401 January, introduction, Pope Boniface VIII had recommended in 1298 that burning should be adopted throughout Christendom. Given-Wilson adds that the Lollard William Swinderby ‘fully expected to be burned’ at his trial in 1382.

16. Usually depictions of burnings are without the barrel. John Badby, who suffered the same fate as Sawtre nine years later, was described as being burned in a barrel by the contemporary Thomas Walsingham. See CM, p. 376.

17. Rogers, ‘Political Crisis’, pp. 87–8; Castor, King, Crown and Duchy, pp. 30–31.

18. Brown, ‘Commons and the council’, p. 3.

19. PROME, 1401 January, introduction; Kirby, pp. 112–13; Rogers, ‘Political Crisis’.

20. His attempts to limit the anti-Welsh legislation were restricted to granting a pardon to all those who had taken part in Glendower’s rising – except William and Rees ap Tudor, and Glendower himself – and a three-year limit on the period during which Welshmen could not sue Englishmen in Wales.

21. PROME, 1401 January, item 48.

22. Adam Usk, p. 131.

23. Harriss, Shaping the Nation, p. 496, describes this as an ‘open letter’. However, it was written at Henry’s own request: in Repingdon’s words, ‘when, with a heavy heart, I last departed from your presence, your excellent majesty requested me, your humble servant, to inform you without delay of anything I might hear … ’ (Adam Usk, p. 137) … ‘I am saying no more than I have already said to you by word of mouth, when I was in your presence’ (ibid., p. 143). It seems to have been a private letter, written for Henry’s information and with his approval, which later came to Usk’s attention, perhaps through the offices of the archbishop of Canterbury.

24. It appears in Adam Usk, pp. 137–43.

25. Wylie iv, pp. 198–9.

26. Gwilym Dodd, ‘Henry IV’s Council’, p. 100.

27. Issues, p. 284.

28. Wylie, ‘Dispensation’, pp. 96–7. Edmund was in his eleventh year on 15 January 1412.

29. Otway-Ruthven, Medieval Ireland, p. 341. Thomas was officially appointed on 27 June and arrived on 13 November.

30. Adam Usk, p. 135; Wylie, i, pp. 228–9.

31. RHL, pp. 73–6.

32. To add to the six chapters of the 1401 statute concerning the Welsh, on 18 March a further ordinance for Wales was issued. This added a number of precautionary measures but these arose from petitions presented in the parliament to prevent a reoccurrence of Glendower’s rising. It cannot therefore be said to have greatly extended what was agreed in parliament.

33. Wylie, i, pp. 212–18; Adam Usk, p. 129.

34. ODNB, under ‘Glyn Dŵr, Owain’. The reference to PC, ii, p. 55, quoted indicates that Glendower was in the Carmarthenshire/Cardiganshire area in May, not June.

35. Signet Letters, p. 28.

36. RHL, i, p. 71.

37. PC, i, pp. 156–64; Kirby, pp. 127–8.

38. Adam Usk, p. 135.

39. PC, i, p. 154; Kirby, p. 128. This was made up of £13,000 for Calais, £5,000 for Ireland, £10,000 for Aquitaine, £8,000 for returning Isabella, £24,000 in annuities granted by the king, £16,000 to repay loans, £16,000 for the wardrobe, and £38,000 for the war in Scotland, the campaigns in Wales and the defence of the sea. See also Royal Household, p. 129.

40. Rutland was created lieutenant of Aquitaine on 28 August. CP, xii, 2, p. 903.

41. Wylie confused Henry’s itinerary in Wales in 1401 with that of 1400. Henry was at Hereford on 10–11 October 1401, and then at Llandovery on the 14th (see Wylie, i, p. 243; Signet Letters, p. 31; Kirby, p. 130). He returned to England via Worcester (where he was on the 27th), not Shrewsbury and Shifnal as Wylie states, mistakenly placing the undated rotulus viagii of 2 Henry IV at the start of 3 Henry IV.

42. Adam Usk, p. 145.

43. Adam Usk, pp. 149–53.

13: Uneasy Lies the Head

  1. Annales, p. 337; EC, p. 23; Eulogium, iii, p. 389.

  2. HA, ii, p. 248. Vitae, p. 171, adds the details that the attempted assassination took place in early September 1401 at Westminster and that the murderous contraption was placed in the king’s bed by a member of Queen Isabella’s household, who confessed to the crime and was later pardoned.

  3. It may be noted that (1) high-status beds did not normally have straw mattresses at this time, (2) Henry was at Windsor, not Westminster, in early September 1401, and (3) Isabella and her household had left Westminster several months earlier. Nevertheless, the story is unlikely to have been a complete fiction, and certainly not one started by the king himself (despite Paul Strohm’s assertion in Strohm, Empty Throne, p. 64), for no element of this story can have rebounded to the benefit of the king’s public image.

  4. Vitae, p. 171; Dyer, Standards of Living, p. 263.

  5. Kirby, p. 127.

  6. Adam Usk, p. 147.

  7. PC, p. 178.

  8. PC, p. 178.

  9. ODNB, under ‘Joan of Navarre’.

10. Froissart states that he went to Brittany and met her at Nantes on his way to Spain. See Froissart, ii, p. 687; Strickland, Lives, ii, pp. 60–61.

11. RHL, i, pp. 19–20.

12. For example, see Kirby, p. 136. ‘Whether or not its terms are more effusive than common courtesy required is not easy to determine’, Kirby says, even though he must have realised that no other extant letter addressed to Henry is exclusively devoted to expressions of goodwill towards him. ‘At least Henry might assume on the receipt of this that the duchess was not ill-disposed towards him,’ he adds, with cautiousness so extreme it is comical.

13. PC, i, p. 188.

14. ODNB, under ‘Joan of Navarre’.

15. In addition to Henry’s two love matches we might add his father’s first and third marriages (to Blanche and Katherine), his uncle’s (the Black Prince and Joan of Kent), his aunt’s (Isabella and Enguerrand de Coucy) and his sister’s (Elizabeth and John Holland). The last three especially were choices made out of affection, not political gain.

16. Morgan, ‘Shadow of Richard II’, p. 17.

17. EC, p. 26; Annales, p. 339.

18. The prior of Launde’s arrest is placed just before Trinity (21 May) by Walsingham. See Annales, p. 339.

19. Wylie, i, p. 277.

20. The dialogue here has been modernised from EC, pp. 24–5. The execution is also mentioned by Walsingham (Annales, p. 340).

21. Strohm, Empty Throne, pp. 107–8.

22. EC, p. 24.

23. Issues, p. 286.

24. Morgan, ‘Shadow of Richard II’, p. 13.

25. Syllabus, ii, p. 545.

26. Given-Wilson & Curteis, Royal Bastards, p. 145.

27. Annales, p. 340.

28. The dialogue has been modernised from EC, pp. 24–5. The date is from Wylie, i, p. 278. Walsingham says ‘a few days after 25 May’ in Annales, p. 341.

29. First a London jury failed to condemn them, then so did a Holborn jury. Eventually they were found guilty by the men of Islington. They were drawn to Tyburn and there hanged, the master giving a devout sermon before he died, exclaiming his innocence and forgiving his killers. Another friar made a scaffold speech in which he declared that he never intended ‘to slay the king and sons but to make them dukes of Lancaster, as they should be’. EC, pp. 25–6.

30. Various writers give various dates for this battle, and differ as to whether it was led by Glendower in person. This date and Glendower’s presence in person are from Glyn Dŵr, p. 107.

31. Annales, p. 341.

32. Boardman, Hotspur, p. 145.

33. See Wylie, iv, p. 289, for his itinerary at this time. Between 25 June and 15 August 1402 he stayed at Berkhamsted (Hertfordshire), Market Harborough (Leicestershire), Lilleshall (Shropshire), Ravendale (Lincolnshire), Lichfield and Burton-on-Trent (Staffs), Tideswell and Darley (Derbyshire) and Nottingham, as well as many places in between.

34. Adam Usk, p. 161.

35. Wylie, i, p. 293 (for the prisoners); PROME, 1402 September, item 16.

36. Rogers, ‘Royal Household’ (Ph.D. thesis), p. 90.

37. Signed and sealed at Goucy 7 August 1402. Monstrelet, i, p. 16; Waurin, pp. 64–6.

38. Henry’s reply was dated London 5 December 1402. See Monstrelet, i, pp. 16–18; Waurin, pp. 67–70.

39. Orléans’ second letter was dated 22 March 1403. See Monstrelet, i, pp. 19–20 (has incorrect date of 26 March 1402); Waurin, pp. 73–7. Henry received it on the last day of April.

40. Henry’s reply to Orléans’ second letter was undated. See Monstrelet, i, pp. 21–3; Waurin, pp. 77–85.

41. Wylie, i, p. 309.

42. Signet Letters, p. 41.

43. Radford, ‘An unrecorded royal visit’, p. 259.

44. Wylie, i, p. 310 (where it is given as five hundred marks) and ii, p. 288.

45. Radford, ‘An unrecorded royal visit’, p. 262; Issues, p. 305.

46. For his fool see Issues, p. 284.

47. For this aspect of her character, see her refusal to allow her husband to send their little son as a hostage to the lord de Clisson, in Strickland, Lives, ii, p. 57.

48. Strohm, Empty Throne, p. 157.

49. Issues, p. 286.

14: A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury

  1. See the speech attributed to the Percys in Eulogium, iii, pp. 396–7.

  2. Particularly Adam Orleton, bishop of Hereford in the reign of Edward II, William Melton, archbishop of York during the time of Mortimer’s rule, John Stratford, archbishop of Canterbury during the Crisis of 1341, William Wykeham in relation to John of Gaunt in the 1370s, and Thomas Arundel himself in 1386. I am indebted to W. M. Ormrod, ‘Rebellion of Archbishop Scrope and the Tradition of Opposition to Royal Taxation’, for further ideas about this.

  3. Boardman, Hotspur, p. 149.

  4. Brut, ii, p. 548.

  5. EC, p. 27.

  6. EHD, p. 192. Adam Usk, p. 161. He fathered four children by her in the seven years after being taken captive, so the marriage must have taken place reasonably soon afterwards. The failure of parliament to appeal on his behalf suggests his loyalty was in doubt in October 1402. Edmund declared his allegiance to Glendower in a letter to Sir John Greyndour dated 13 December 1402.

  7. CPR 1401–5, p. 213.

  8. PC, pp. 203–4.

  9. PC, Privy Council, pp. 204–5.

10. See 1 Maccabees, chapter 2; see also 1 Maccabees, chapter 14, verses 29–32, regarding Mathathias’s son, Simon, who had resisted invasions and spent much money in defending the country for the glory of the kingdom. The allusion to Hotspur – if intended – is fitting.

11. This is presuming that the letter was sent on the same day it was written, 26 June, and took five days to reach him from Healaugh, in North Yorkshire, about 220 miles distant.

12. Signet Letters, pp. 48–9; PC, i, pp. 206–7. For Elmyn or Helmyng Leget and his antecedents see T. E. Tout, ‘Firearms in England and the Fourteenth Century’, EHR, 26 (1911), p. 669.

13. Wylie notes a payment on 17 July 1403 of £8,108 for wages to four barons, twenty knights, 476 esquires and 2,500 archers. This could not relate to the present gathering, summoned to Lichfield the previous day, as the exchequer did not pay wages in advance; it might relate to the army Henry took into Wales the previous autumn. But it is perhaps indicative of the size of force which he was used to gathering, and the number of archers especially should be noted.

14. Philip Morgan, ‘Memories of the Battle of Shrewsbury’. One of the major accounts of the battle bears a number of correlations with the classical text of Lucan, and therefore probably reflects the way the chronicler hoped his account would be understood rather than what actually happened.

15. It is normally said that Henry personally reached Shrewsbury first (e.g. ‘Deposition’, p. 178). This is unlikely. According to Capgrave, Chronicle of England, p. 282, Hotspur began to besiege Shrewsbury. If so, and if Henry was not personally at Shrewsbury but with the main army behind, this would explain how he forced a battle by arriving afterwards, and stayed the night before the battle at Haughmond Abbey, to the north-east of Berwick Field.

16. See Appendix Four.

17. ‘Deposition’, p. 179.

18. Waurin, p. 60.

19. Capgrave, Chronicle of England, p. 282 (rebel army); HA, ii, p. 257 (royal army). Most modern writers tend to estimate that there were twelve to fourteen thousand men in the king’s army and ten thousand with Hotspur, but these figures are little more than educated guesses.

20. It is normally assumed that the battle was fought on a north–south axis. Given that the prince advanced from Shrewsbury and Henry from Haughmond, it is more likely that the initial confrontation was either east–west or northwest–southeast. No single source is reliable enough, and the combined narratives are too contradictory to be certain of this point.

21. CR, pp. 194–5. See also Eulogium, iii, p. 397.

22. Eulogium, iii, p. 397.

23. ‘Deposition’, p. 179.

24. Waurin, p. 61.

25. This interpretation is supported by the most accurate of the chronicles to describe the battle, the Dieulacres chronicle. See ‘Deposition’, p. 180.

26. ‘Deposition’, p. 180. Other sources, describing Stafford’s death with the other notables, have transposed his demise to a later stage of the battle, fighting alongside Blount and the king.

27. Annales, p. 367.

28. Brut, ii, p. 549.

29. Waurin, p. 62.

30. The charge of the thirty knights is reported in Eulogium, iii, p. 397 and EC, p. 28.

31. Boardman, Hotspur, p. 203, argues on the strength of a reference in Gregory’s chronicle to Stafford dying in the king’s coat armour, that ‘Stafford was the only man to adopt this changed role’. However Adam Usk, p. 171, mentions two men in the king’s armour, and Brut, ii, p. 549, specifically mentions that Blount was wearing the king’s coat armour. Although some writers assume Stafford was killed alongside Blount, for the two are mentioned together in some sources, this is only because they were the most notable casualties on the king’s side. According to the Dieulacres account, Stafford was killed by a Percy arrow, a scenario very likely in view of his leading the vanguard.

32. ‘Deposition’, p. 181.

33. See Appendix Four.

34. The statement that the bodies were spread over an area of three miles dates from a much later charter, and possibly relates to how far away the furthest bodies were from the battlefield; these were probably men cut down fleeing the battle. Wylie, i, p. 363.

35. It is usually said that the initiative for the church was local, and only later taken up by the king. This is true in so far as it was a local cleric who presented the petition to Henry in 1406 to alienate the land for the church. However, petitions do not always demonstrate the petitioner’s initiative. Many were as the result of a prior discussion with the king. Adam Usk, p. 171, states that Henry swore to build a chapel there for the souls of the dead. It may be that the 1406 petition merely marks the formal beginning of the bureaucratic paper trail, a response by a designated man to Henry’s initiative.

36. Waurin, pp. 63–4. The text ends ‘he maintained and loved justice above all things, and besides was a very handsome prince, learned, and eloquent, courteous, valiant and brave in arms, and in short was filled with every virtue such as was none of his predecessors before his time’.

37. Wylie, iv, p. 366.

38. Eulogium, iii, p. 397; Annales, pp. 372–3.

39. Given-Wilson, ‘Quarrels of Old Women’.

40. EHD, p. 195.

15: Treason’s True Bed

  1. Quoted from Chris Given-Wilson’s translation of the Durham newsletter in PROME, 1404 January, appendix.

  2. PROME, 1404 January, introduction.

  3. Eulogium, iii, p. 400. The gaoler is unnamed. It would either have been Thomas Swynford or Robert Waterton.

  4. PROME, 1404 January, introduction.

  5. It was the sixth plot if one counts Glendower’s rising as a plot, and does not count the story about the barbed metal implement in his bed. The other four were the Epiphany Rising (1400), the poisoned saddle (1400), the friars’ conspiracy (1402) and the Percy revolt (1403).

  6. For the countess of Oxford’s plot, see Ross, ‘Seditious Activities’; Morgan, ‘Shadow of Richard II’, pp. 19–22; Wylie, i, pp. 417–28.

  7. Wylie, i, p. 437; Syllabus, p. 550. It is not clear if Hawley was mayor at this time (Hugh R. Watkin, Dartmouth (Devonshire Association, 1935), p. 184, has no names of mayors for 1402–4).

  8. Morgan, ‘Shadow of King Richard’, p. 21.

  9. Wylie, i, pp. 431–2.

10. He was captured before 19 June 1404. See PROME, 1404 January, appendix; Adam Usk, pp. 176–7.

11. EC, p. 30.

12. Eulogium, iii, p. 402.

13. Kirby, p. 172.

14. However, Kirby, p. 174, prefers the idea that it was called ‘unlearned’ because of the attack on Church property by ignorant men.

15. PC, i, p. 233.

16. PROME, 1404 October, items 14–23.

17. Pelham was a Lancastrian retainer. Thomas Neville, Lord Furnival, was the brother of the earl of Westmorland.

18. Annales, p. 399.

19. During his 1402 campaign in Wales, he had the boys temporarily transferred to the custody of his trusted servant Hugh Waterton at Berkhamsted. See ODNB, under ‘Mortimer, Edmund (V)’.

20. The date is uncertain. Walsingham and Otterburne both say the Friday after St Valentine – 20 February – but as Wylie says, this must be a week late (Wylie, ii, p. 41). Henry knew of the plot in the early morning of Sunday 15 February (Signet Letters, p. 191) and Lady Despenser had been arrested by 17 February (Wylie, ii, p. 43). It is therefore likely that the date was the Friday before St Valentine (13 February): a copyist’s error is probably to blame.

21. Signet Letters, p. 191.

22. CP, xii/2, p. 903.

23. Glyn Dŵr, p. 167. With regard to Glendower’s faith in prophecy, it is interesting that he employed a ‘master of Brut’ at this time. See ODNB, under ‘Glyn Dŵr, Owain’.

24. Brut, i, pp. 75–76. This version postdates the fall of Edward II. The story is the same as in the earliest known version written down about 1312. See Taylor, Political Prophecy, pp. 163–4; Smallwood, ‘Prophecy of the Six Kings’, pp. 571–92.

25. Glyn Dŵr, pp. 167–9. These boundaries too were based on Welsh prophetic writing, the Welsh Triads delineating the ‘Three Realms of Britain’.

26. As shown by Glendower in renouncing the allegiance of the Welsh Church to Rome the following year (1406) and by Henry in countenancing the confiscation of the temporalities of the Church in October 1404 and executing various high-ranking clergymen in 1402, 1405 and 1408.

27. For Dafydd Gam’s attempt to kill Glendower during his first parliament, see Glyn Dŵr, p. 226.

28. PC, i, p. 249.

29. Glyn Dŵr, p. 119; PC, pp. 250–51.

30. Wylie, ii, p. 93.

31. The fifteen knights are named by Walsingham. See Annales, pp. 400–401.

32. Syllabus, ii, p. 553.

33. The date of the battle of Usk is disputed. Adam Usk – a man born in Usk – records that it was fought on 12 March 1405, and he gives several correct details about the battle (Adam Usk, p. 213). Shortly after giving this news he refers to being robbed by Welshmen in whom he had placed his trust, so, although he was writing on the Continent, he was probably well informed. However, the end of his entry, in which he relates how Gruffydd died of plague in the Tower six years later, shows that Usk himself, or a later copyist, introduced other details into his manuscript. It is likely therefore that the date of 12 March (the feast of St Gregory) was inserted later, arising out of a confusion with the eve of St Gregory, when the prince defeated the Welsh at Grosmont. Walsingham gives the date of the battle of Usk as 5 May (Annales, p. 399), and this is altogether more likely, asGlyn Dŵr, pp. 226, 223, agrees.

34. Walker, ‘Yorkshire Risings’, p. 161; Annales, p. 400.

35. PC, p. 264.

36. See Walker, ‘Yorkshire Risings’, for the rising as ‘a series of loosely connected and largely spontaneous risings … best treated as three separate, and perhaps sequential, episodes’.

37. PROME, 1406 March, part 2, item 2.

38. Ormrod, ‘Rebellion of Archbishop Scrope’, Nottingham 2006.

39. Walker, ‘Yorkshire Risings’, pp. 164–5.

40. Walker, ‘Yorkshire Risings’, p. 172.

41. Both Walsingham and the continuator of the Eulogium refer to Westmorland and the archbishop drinking together. See Annales, p. 406, and Eulogium, iii, p. 406.

42. EC, p. 32, refers to the king sending a host to Westmorland.

43. Badby, p. 123.

44. Eulogium, iii, p. 407.

45. When news of Lord Bardolph’s secret flight north was revealed, Gascoigne was one of the two members whom the council sent to enquire, specifically because Henry had ‘a special confidence in him’. See PC, i, p.

46. Badby, p. 124.

16: Smooth Comforts False

  1. The various accounts are summarised in Wylie, ii, pp. 246–52 and analysed in more detail in McNiven, ‘Henry IV’s health’, pp. 747–59.

  2. McNiven, ‘Henry IV’s health’, p. 757. See also McNiven’s conclusion on p. 759. The investigation included an examination of his nasal passages, which would have disintegrated after eight years of leprosy.

  3. PC, i, p. 275.

  4. PK, p. 432.

  5. The only statement by the king himself regarding his disease is a letter to the council, which would not have been made public. See Signet Letters, pp. 125–6.

  6. The 1397 treatment of a plaster was purchased from the London grocer William Chichele. See Wylie, iv, p. 153.

  7. Adam Usk, p. 243.

  8. Wylie, iv, p. 153; Appendix Six.

  9. Rawcliffe, Medicine and Society, p. 47.

10. CPR 1399–1401, p. 255. See Appendix Six.

11. Biggs, ‘Politics of health’, p. 191; idem, ‘An Ill and Infirm King’.

12. The documents used for the comparison were C 81/1358 no. 4b and C 81/1362 no. 46.

13. Wylie, ii, p. 267; iii, p. 112. Wylie’s reference to 10,000 lb. of copper being purchased for cannon in 1402 later ended up as ‘the king’s own great gun’ of 4.5 tons. There is no direct evidence for Henry having a gun of this weight. Even if he is right, a cannon of 4.5 tons would have been very difficult to transport from Nottingham to Aberystwyth via Hereford (as in Wylie, iv, p. 234). The two-ton cannon called ‘The Messenger’ is more likely to have been the largest then employed.

14. Wylie, ii, p. 272.

15. For the year 1405 there are no fewer than 302 signet letters extant, calendared in Signet Letters, pp. 62–115. This is by far the largest number for any single year (37 are extant for 1402, 82 for 1403, 42 for 1404, 165 for 1406, 24 for 1407, 14 for 1408, 19 for 1409, 12 for 1410 and 3 for 1412). Although the irregularities of creation (for which see Kirby, p. 210) and the vagaries of survival mean that this is a poor method of measuring actual work undertaken, it is worth noting that in 1405 itself, 176 signet letters date from before 8 June 1405 and 146 are dated afterwards, indicating that Henry sustained a high level of business despite his illness.

16. This took place at Lambeth on 26 December. Philippa was married in October 1406 at Lund. She never saw any of her family again.

17. The essential reading for this is Biggs, ‘Politics of health’.

18. According to Biggs, thirty-six of the seventy-four county members in the 1406 parliament were royal retainers, with a further nine being retainers of royalist lords (Biggs, ‘Politics of health’, pp. 203–4). According to Dodd, ‘Conflict or Consensus’, p. 123, the figure was twenty-eight retainers but a total of fifty-nine Lancastrian supporters. There were 167 borough members (PROME, 1406 March, introduction). Thus even if all the county members were pro-Lancastrian they would still have been outnumbered by the borough representatives. Indeed, one explanation of why the majority of the county members were Lancastrian is that Henry ordered the sheriffs to choose sympathetic men to bolster his position against the rebellious borough representatives.

19. To be specific: the 22 May arrangements, which can be connected with the king’s physical condition, cannot be connected with the commons, being the king’s own reaction to his illness; the 22 December arrangements (the Thirty-One Articles) cannot be connected to the king’s illness, given that his condition had improved and these articles were far harsher on the king than the earlier ones.

20. Signet Letters, p. 124.

21. CPR 1405–8, p. 170.

22. Wylie, iv, p. 295.

23. Signet Letters, p. 125.

24. Signet Letters, pp. 125–6.

25. This would imply that he led his army to Berwick after the Yorkshire Rising in this same state, and then campaigned in Wales in poor health.

26. He stayed at the Tower, Lambeth, Eltham and Dowgate. The only places away from the river he stayed at between 11 November 1405 and the opening of parliament (1 March 1406) were Hertford Castle (11–17 December, 30 January–3 February, 21–26 February) and Waltham Abbey (29–30 January). See Wylie, iv, p. 295; Signet Letters, pp. 104–23.

27. PK, p. 430. See also Appendix Six. I have been unable to identify a large cadre of physicians attending the king at this time. Biggs, ‘Politics of health’, p. 192, suggests he may have been attended by as many as five.

28. Henry was at Westminster on Saturday 8 May (PROME, 1406 March, item 29), Wednesday 12 May (C 53/175, no. 4), Friday 14, Saturday 15, Saturday 22 and Monday 14 May (PROME, 1406 March, item 29, supported by C 53/175, no. 2), Wednesday 2 June (C 53/175, no. 3), Monday 7 June (PROME, 1406 March, item 38), and Saturday 19 June (PROME, 1406 March, item 41). The last day of this session was the day of the trial of Lord Bardolph and the earl of Northumberland.

29. PROME, March 1406, item 31.

30. Eulogium, iii, p. 409.

31. See Appendix Five. It is possible that Henry travelled by carriage; however, evidence is lacking on this point.

32. Biggs, ‘Politics of health’, p. 198; Kirby, p. 203. The abbot and the monks met the king at the lower gate of the monastery. He dropped to his knees and kissed their crucifix. Having been sprinkled with holy water, he was led into the church and up to the high altar, where he heard a short service, sang a hymn and listened to the abbot’s address. There he kissed the sacred relics. He spent the night in the abbot’s lodging, and rose early the next morning to attend two Masses in St Mary’s Chapel (it being a Sunday, 22 August). He processed with the choir around the cloister and went back to the abbot’s lodging for breakfast with his sons Thomas and Humphrey. Having dined with the abbot and the lords and knights in his party, he received two visitors: Philip Repingdon, his old confessor, now bishop of Lincoln, and Lord Willoughby, who had been with him on his crusade in Prussia. After their departure he spent the rest of the day reading in the abbey library.

33. Bede, A History of the English Church and People, trans. Leo Sherley-Price (rev. ed., 1968), pp. 158–62.

34. PROME, March 1406, introduction.

35. PC, i, p. 295.

36. This figure of £2,500 has been taken by some writers to represent the total expenses but the source – Kirby – states that it relates to the county members alone (Kirby, p. 206). The expense was about £34 per member for all three sessions (120 days), an average of 5s 8d per day. This is a little in excess of the 4s per day to which Walsingham states the knights and their deputies attending parliament in 1410 were entitled (CM, p. 379). In addition, there were 167 burgesses summoned in 1406, and they were also permitted to reclaim expenses. Had they done so in the same proportion as the county members, that would have added a further £5,462 to the bill, making a total in the region of £8,000, nearly a quarter of the £37,000 implicit in a grant of a tenth and a fifteenth. The forty-nine or so lords usually summoned were not entitled to reclaim expenses, and nor were the forty-seven parliamentary archbishops, bishops, abbots and priors.

37. Kirby, p. 206; Annales, p. 418.

38. Brut, ii, p. 367.

39. Given-Wilson, Royal Household, p. 141.

40. Wright, ‘Recovery of royal finance in 1407’, pp. 71–80.

41. Badby, p. 144.

42. Kirby, p. 210; Allmand, p. 42.

43. CCR 1405-9, p. 261.

44. PROME, 1407 March, appendix, item 1.

45. CPR 1405–9, pp. 361–2.

46. Biggs, ‘An Ill and Infirm King’.

47. See Appendix Five.

48. Wylie, iv, pp. 296–7. His route via Worksop (Signet Letters, p. 146) shows that on this occasion he did not sail up the River Trent to Nottingham.

49. 1 Peter, chapter ii, verse 17.

50. PROME, 1407 October, item 5.

51. Kirby, p. 215, claims Henry was in Gloucester on 20 October; however, the parliament roll states that when parliament assembled on 24 October, having been adjourned on the 20th, the chancellor spoke ‘in the presence of the lords spiritual and temporal’, and not ‘in the presence of the king and the lords and commons’. The king is not mentioned as being present until the presentation of the Speaker the following day.

52. A radically alternative view is put forward by Douglas Biggs in ‘An Ill and Infirm King’, specifically that in terms of the political management of the commons ‘Arundel’s machinations must be counted a complete failure’. Biggs bases this judgement on an assumption that Arundel’s ploy to have a committee of powerful lords speak to the commons proved a failure, and that the storm of protest which greeted his use of the lords to set the level of taxation was ‘the greatest concession to any house of commons before the Civil War’. I would counter that, with regard to the first of these, the lords’ committee was not a ploy of Arundel’s but a direct result of a request from the commons (PROME, 1407 October, item 18). Nor is there any evidence that it proved a failure; in fact it seems to have been successful, for no detrimental repercussions resulting from this meeting are recorded on the parliament roll. With regard to the second point, the storm of protest was not sufficient to inhibit the granting of the substantial tax and wool subsidy, or even to delay the grant. Indeed, the fact that it took Arundel just eleven working days (from Monday 21 November to Friday 2 December) to persuade the commons to grant a tax significantly larger than that granted in the Long Parliament, which took more than 120 days of parliamentary time, has to be counted extremely efficient political management, especially considering that many members of the Long Parliament were also present at Gloucester. In lifting the restrictions on the king and the council, and securing a large grant so rapidly in the face of the commons’ opposition, Arundel has to be counted wholly successful. As for the concession to the commons of their right in future to discuss the affairs of the realm without the king being present, it is arguable that this merely confirmed what was already the practice, and had been since 1399 if not 1376.

53. For his sexual proclivity, see Eulogium, iii, p. 410. He claimed to have fathered all the French queen’s children.

54. Wylie, iii, p. 93.

55. PROME, 1406 March, part 2, item 9.

56. The confirmation ‘by the king’ was dated at Gloucester, but it would appear that by this date he had already set out for Eltham. He was at Cirencester on the 8th and Windsor on the 14th, and back at Westminster on the 18th. See Syllabus, p. 559; Signet Letters,p. 147.

17: Golden Care

  1. Wylie, iii, pp. 146–52.

  2. Issues, pp. 307–8. The payment of £13 6s 8d to Simon Flete on 17 January 1408 was followed up by a final payment on completion of the work on 16 March: it is this latter entry which specifies that Henry himself invented this cannon.

  3. Wylie, iv, p. 230.

  4. Wylie, iv, pp. 230–32.

  5. It is worth noting that the document which famously misled generations of historians into believing that English ships were equipped with iron and brass cannon as early as 1338 dates not from that year but from 12 Henry IV (1410–11). See Tout, ‘Firearms in England’, p. 669.

  6. Wylie, iv, p. 157.

  7. EHD, p. 201.

  8. According to Signet Letters, p. 148, he was at Leicester on 16 March. The same day he was at Nottingham, twenty-five miles to the north, where he gave royal assent to the election of the abbot of Selby (according to Syllabus, ii, p. 560). Covering this distance in one day would mean that he was either fit enough to ride long-distance, carried in a litter, or travelled by carriage between Leicester and Nottingham.

  9. These were York, Bishopthorpe, Cawood, Selby and Wheelhall. Rothwellhaigh, Pontefract and Newstead Priory are not on rivers: these he must have travelled to by road. See Wylie, iv, p. 297.

10. Signet Letters, p. 148. Kirby, p. 224, placed this letter in the following year. He corrected this view when editing the letter for Signet Letters. For Birdsnest Lodge see HKW, ii, p. 901.

11. McNiven, ‘Henry IV’s health’, p. 761. The date is based on the assumption that the collapse postdates the proclamation that Henry would be at Nottingham on 12 August to oversee a tournament (Syllabus, p. 561).

12. For Usk’s relationship with the archbishop see Adam Usk, pp. 247–9.

13. Adam Usk, p. 243.

14. The Black Prince is usually said to have died of dysentery (Richard Barber, The Black Prince (Stroud, 2003), p. 214, and in ODNB, under ‘Edward of Woodstock’). There are very few sources for his symptoms. One of the two referenced by Barber (Thompson (ed.), Chronicon Angliae, pp. 88–9) does suggest that he had ‘bloody flux’ or dysentery at the end of his life, but it was not necessarily the underlying illness. Indeed, it was probably not. Lethal cases of dysentery killed the medieval sufferer within weeks (Henry V being an example). The same chronicler who states that the Black Prince had dysentery also states that four thousand people died of the disease in a single year in Gascony in 1411 (CM, p. 380). In marked contrast, the Black Prince had a wasting disease which left him increasingly debilitated for about eight years. With regard to the possible connectedness of the prince’s disease and Henry’s it should be noted that both the prince and Henry retained their mental composure to the end of their lives. The Black Prince’s infection was probably picked up on campaign in Castile. Henry was of course in regular contact with representatives from Iberia – his half-sister was the queen of Castile, his eldest sister was the queen of neighbouring Portugal, and his wife maintained contact with her homeland of Navarre – so it is quite possible that he had caught the disease from an ambassador. Neither man had children after the onset of their illnesses, but neither man seems to have foreshortened his wife’s life, so neither man is likely to have suffered a highly contagious or sexually transmitted disease.

15. For the pain of his sickness, see EHD, p. 207.

16. Wylie, iv, p. 231.

17. Wylie, iv, p. 233.

18. Royal Wills, p. 203. The spelling has been modernised.

19. LK, pp. 217–19.

20. He witnessed three royal charters in 1408. Biggs, ‘Witness Lists’, p. 421.

21. Wylie, iv, p. 349.

22. Royal Wills, pp. 203–7. There were others, unnamed, also at the making of the will.

23. Signet Letters, p. 150. The signet letter from Henry was sent on 22 February; the council sent the letter in his name as if he witnessed it being sealed with his privy seal in person at Westminster on 26 March at Westminster. See RHL, ii, p. 240.

24. The privy seal writ predates the patent letter by five days. See Signet Letters, p. 150.

25. He appropriated revenues from four nearby churches in order to endow the church, for which he later came in for criticism, especially from Wylie, who compared this religious foundation with Eton and King’s College at Cambridge, both founded by Henry VI. See Wylie, iii, p. 243.

26. Signet Letters, p. 152.

27. Signet Letters, p. 152. The spelling has been modernised and the grammar slightly changed for the sake of readability.

28. Williams (ed.), Correspondence of Bekyngton, ii, p. 368.

29. Wylie, iii, p. 252.

30. Williams (ed.), Bekyngton, ii, p. 366.

31. Brut, ii, p. 369.

32. Allmand, pp. 41–2.

33. For example, Badby, pp. 151–2; ODNB, under ‘Thomas of Lancaster’.

34. It was Henry V who brought Richard II’s body back from King’s Langley to be buried at Westminster, and the story goes that he had always been fond of Richard, who had knighted him in Ireland in 1399. Likewise they may have had different views about Hotspur, many of whose servants and followers came to be employed by the prince. See Kirby, p. 227.

35. Allmand, p. 397; PROME, 1423 October, item 35. Henry Beaufort seems to have taken against her too. See PROME, 1426 February, introduction.

36. Allmand, pp. 49–50; PROME, 1411 November, introduction, quoting A. H. Thomas & I. D. Thornley (eds), The Great Chronicle of London (1938), p. 90.

37. That this was intentional is made likely by the fact that it had been Edward III’s entail which had brought John of Gaunt’s children closer to the throne than his older siblings’.

38. Such a view is outlined in EC, p. 37, where it is dated to 1412–13, and A. H. Thomas & I. D. Thornley (eds), The Great Chronicle of London (1938), p. 90, where it is dated to 1411. Such an opinion is likely to have been held for some while before this.

39. It should be noted that Thomas of Lancaster and Henry Beaufort were unfriendly towards one another at this time. In 1411, when Thomas obtained dispensation to marry John Beaufort’s widow, Henry Beaufort attempted to stop him. See Kirby, p. 234; Allmand, p. 53; CB, pp. 64–5.

40. CB, p. 48.

41. Wylie, iv, pp. 298–9. It is perhaps significant that he is not known to have stayed with Henry Beaufort in this year, although he had stayed with him in previous years.

42. CB, p. 44.

43. CB, p. 49; Wylie, iii, p. 284. Kirby, p. 225, gives 19 December.

44. The king travelled eleven miles per day, slow by normal standards but a rare example of sustained road travel at this time in his life. See Appendix Five.

45. For a view supporting the sustained friendship between Henry and Archbishop Arundel at this time, see Badby, pp. 149–50, 188. An alternative reading is suggested in Allmand, p. 42. This is that Arundel was dismissed because he ‘may not have been high in the royal favour’. Two reasons are given by Allmand for this tentative suggestion: that he had not always been a firm supporter of the king and that Henry did not appreciate the archbishop’s restrictions on his financial practices. The first of these is difficult to see, given Arundel’s pro-royal role in parliaments throughout the reign, especially that of 1407. The second is speculation. What is not in doubt is that the close bonds between Henry and Arundel in 1407 grew – if anything – closer in 1408 and 1409, when Arundel was chancellor and leader of the council. Henry wrote notes in his own hand in these two years thanking him for his work, and often stayed at the archbishop’s own houses. (Henry is known to have stayed at Lambeth, for example, in January, February, March, April and May 1410: see Badby, p. 188; Wylie, iv, p. 299). In March 1409 he granted Arundel the royal castle of Queenborough, and later that year the royal manor of Sheen (Badby, p. 156). The archbishop was with him in his sicknesses in 1408 and 1409, and witnessed his will on 21 January 1409. It is also striking that Arundel witnessed almost every charter on C 53/178 (10–12 Henry IV) even after he was no longer chancellor. The only exception is no. 9, sealed on 12 November 1409 (no. 10, dated 17 February 1410 having no witnesses). Other strong evidence for the reading given in the text here – that Arundel resigned against the king’s will – is Henry IV’s emphatic support for Arundel in his argument with Oxford University in 1411 and the fact that Henry brought back Arundel as chancellor when he reasserted his own authority at the end of 1411. It is far more likely that in December 1409 Arundel was no longer able to tolerate the assertiveness of the young prince, who sacked him as chancellor on the day after Henry IV died.

46. Henry is not known to have visited Southwark Palace in 1409 or 1410 (unlike 1408). In later years, Henry Beaufort was questioned in parliament over his loyalty to Henry, and at the end of the reign he was widely thought to have tried to persuade the king to abdicate. For obvious reasons, it would be quite understandable if Henry had always been a little cautious of his father’s other son called Henry.

47. It would appear that the king’s half-brother was trying to undermine the king’s friend in ecclesiastical as well as political matters. See Badby, pp. 153–4.

48. For Thomas Beaufort as the member of the prince’s party ‘most acceptable to the king’, see Badby, p. 202.

49. CM, pp. 377–9; PROME, 1410 January, introduction and appendix.

50. For a full discussion of this scheme see Badby, pp. 192–5.

51. CM, p. 379.

52. Badby, p. 207.

53. Royal Wills, pp. 208–11.

54. According to Kirby, p. 230, only these three attended a meeting on 8 February 1410.

55. Kirby, p. 241. The existence of this measure is known only from its annulment. That councillors swore to abide by the Thirty-One Articles again, and that this was struck from the record is not impossible. Some such measure would explain how the prince and the council was able to overrule the king in his assent to the fifteenth article of the commons petition of 23 April.

56. Signet Letters, p. 154.

57. C 53/178. Of the seven which fall in 1410 (nos 2–8), only two were granted by the king in person, and both of these were during the first session of parliament. The remainder were granted on the strength of a privy seal writ.

18: In That Jerusalem

  1. Given-Wilson, Royal Household, p. 137. The importance to Henry can be gauged from his statement in 1407, when he declared that those currently serving him should be paid their annuities as a priority, over and above recipients of grants in earlier years.

  2. PC, ii, p. 7. These were in addition to the prince and the three officers (treasurer, chancellor and keeper of the privy seal).

  3. PC, ii, pp. 8–12.

  4. Wylie, iii, p. 431.

  5. Signet Letters, p. 154.

  6. Kirby, p. 236.

  7. On 29 November 1410 Henry appointed ambassadors to negotiate with representatives of Castile and France. The same day he separately licensed the prince to grant safe-conducts to the ambassadors of the duke of Burgundy, even though he himself was happy to issue safe-conducts to the French negotiators. In addition, he directed the instructions to the French embassy to be sealed with the great seal and the privy seal (both controlled by members of the council) but not the signet, his personal seal. Although the split with the council was some way off, the difference in policy towards France was perhaps clear to Henry long before the dispute became open. See Nicols, Privy Council, ii, pp. 5–6; Syllabus, ii, p. 566.

  8. Allmand, p. 48.

  9. Wylie, iv, p. 36; Allmand, p. 48.

10. Wylie, iv, p. 38.

11. For example, Kirby, p. 238, and Wylie, iv, p. 40. McNiven in ‘Health’ allows that problems with the prince may have been the real reason. It should be noted that the king was well enough and sane enough at this time to write letters in his own hand (for which see Signet Letters, p. 155).

12. Syllabus, p. 568 (ships); PROME, 1411 November, introduction (summons). If Wylie, iv, p. 41, is correct in stating that plans for the parliament were being made as early as 28 August, this might suggest that the council was planning to hold a parliament in Henry’s absence, in which case there can be little doubt that the purpose was to gain parliamentary approval for his deposition.

13. PROME, 1411 November, introduction.

14. Kirby, p. 234; Allmand, p. 53; CB, pp. 64–5.

15. Eulogium, iii, pp. 420–1. In addition there is the prince’s open letter of 1412, which accuses others of claiming this about him (for which see CM, p. 384) and similar claims in February 1426 against Henry Beaufort regarding his disloyalty to Henry IV. The latter accusation was on the testimony of Henry V himself, who reported to his brother Humphrey that when Henry IV had been extremely ill, Henry Beaufort had said to him that the king, being so racked with illness that he was not compos mentis or able to speak, was not capable of governing his people, and so he urged him to take the government and crown upon himself (PROME, 1426 February, appendix).

16. PROME, 1411 November, introduction, quoting J. A. Giles (ed.), Incerti Scriptoris Chronicon Angliae (1848), p. 63.

17. PROME, 1411 November, item 25.

18. PROME, 1411 November, item 26.

19. CCR 1409–13, p. 311. The sole exceptions were Owen Glendower and Thomas Ward of Trumpington (the man impersonating Richard II in Scotland).

20. Henry’s final council is named in PC, ii, pp. 31 (twice, once without Lord Roos), 36 and 38. Bowet was appointed on 6 January 1412 (Wylie, iv, p. 52). See also King’s Council, p. 164, where it is stated that the duke of Clarence was a member of the council. This is unlikely, as he was abroad from shortly after his creation as duke.

21. Allmand, p. 61. On p. 54 Allmand suggests that Henry chose to support the Armagnacs because he wished to demonstrate his independence from his son’s policy in supporting Burgundy. However, Henry is unlikely to have made his mind up on which faction to support only in the wake of dismissing his son; it is far more likely that this was a bone of contention leading to the prince’s dismissal.

22. For enmity between the duke of Brittany (son of the queen of England) and Burgundy, see Monstrelet, i, p. 209. In addition, it should be noted that Arthur of Brittany, son of Queen Joan of England, had been brought up in the household of the duke of Orléans (Wylie, iv, p. 67). For the alliances between the Armagnacs and Navarre, Gascony, Brittany and Aragon see CM, p. 382.

23. Representatives of the duke of Burgundy were in England discussing the potential marriage alliance from 1 February to 4 March 1412. Henry had given them safe-conducts on 11 January 1412 and appointed negotiators to deal with them on 10 February. The Armagnacs sent negotiators on 24 January; they received safe-conducts on 6 February. See Syllabus, ii, p. 569; Wylie, iv, p. 64.

24. CM, p. 385.

25. C 53/179 no 07.

26. The prince received one thousand marks on 18 February (Wylie, iv, p. 51); payments for their services also went to the prince’s treasurer, Henry Scrope, and the earls of Arundel and Warwick. Allmand, p. 53, quoting E 404/27/168–9, 214, 268.

27. C 53/179 nos 5, 6. The earlier of these was the foundation by the duke of York of the great collegiate church at Fotheringay. That Henry visited Windsor in the meantime is suggested by the itinerary in Wylie, iv, p. 301.

28. As Henry declared on 16 May. See Syllabus, p. 571.

29. For the naming of the prince as a supporter of the king on this expedition, see CM, p. 386.

30. C 53/179 no. 2. This took place on 5 July 1412, four days before Thomas of Lancaster was created duke of Clarence. Extraordinarily, these creations were the only ones in the whole of Henry IV’s reign (except passing the royal and Lancastrian titles to his son and heir in 1399). It is surprising that until now he had not raised his younger sons to dukedoms, even though parliament had urged him to do so regularly since 1406. There are two obvious reasons why he had been reluctant. One was that he could not afford to endow his sons with the lands required to maintain them in the dignity of dukes. The other was the lesson of Richard’s reign, in which so many dukes had been created that the dignity had been cheapened.

31. C 53/l79 no. 5.

32. CM, p. 386.

33. Wylie, iv, pp. 92–3.

34. CM, p. 386, has 29 June. Wylie, iv, p. 90, states that the prince was at the bishop of London’s house from 30 June to 11 July. There are several accounts of what took place in his meeting with his father, but it seems that two separate meetings have been confused by contemporary writers: one following the prince’s letter of 17 June and the other following accusations of the prince’s sequestration of the money for Calais in September. Wylie associates the prince drawing a dagger in the king’s presence and asking the king to kill him to the late June reconciliation; Allmand andODNB (under ‘Henry IV’) date it to the September one. The closeness of the suspicions harboured by the king in the First English Life of Henry V to those mentioned by Walsingham in relation to June, combined with the presence of the earl of Ormond (who sailed to France with the duke of Clarence in August), favour the late June meeting. See Wylie, iv, pp. 53, 90–91; Allmand, pp. 57–8; C. L. Kingsford (ed.), The First English Life of Henry V (Oxford, 1911), pp. 11–12; EHD, p. 206; CM, p. 387.

35. Wylie, iv, p. 90; John Stow, Chronicle of England (1615), p. 339. But note Wylie’s word of caution on not finding Ormond’s testimony in Stow’s supposed source.

36. EHD, p. 206.

37. John Stow, Chronicle of England (1615), p. 340. Whether this scene relates to the reconciliation in late June or early July, or to a second meeting of the king and his son in late September, is not certain. However, a meaningful reconciliation did take place between Henry and his son at this time, followed by a show of reconciliation between Henry Beaufort and Thomas of Lancaster. On 13 July 1412 Henry Beaufort received a pardon which specifically named him as executor of his brother’s will, reflecting on his dispute with Thomas (CPR 1408–13, p. 420).

38. Wylie, iv, p. 72.

39. PC, ii, p. 33; Wylie, iv, p. 77, has different figures, taken from the St Denis chronicle.

40. PC, ii, pp. 34–5. This is undated but it includes a reference to paying wages to the prince for the service of sixty men-at-arms for 203 days from 9 March, i.e. to 25 September.

41. Walsingham also claims this in relation to the June reconciliation. In relation to these earlier claims, Arundel had received a general pardon on 15 June (Syllabus, ii, p. 571). Walsingham gives very little information for the last year of the king’s life, however, and is less reliable as an authority for this period.

42. PC, ii, pp. 37–8.

43. Wylie, iv, p. 102.

44. EHD, p. 206.

45. Wylie, iv, p. 38, n. 1.

46. Or the Bethlehem Chamber, according to Elmham, a royal chaplain. See Wright (ed.), Political Poems, ii, pp. 122.

47. Brut, ii, p. 372; EHD, p. 207.

48. Monstrelet, i, pp. 239–40; Waurin, pp. 166–7. Monstrelet was Waurin’s source (Gransden, Historical Writing II, pp. 289, 291–2). Monstrelet himself does not fail to compliment Henry on his virtues; he describes him as ‘a valiant knight, eager and subtle against his enemies’, and states that the prince was ‘honourably crowned’, so the bias of the story was not his own. But we should be suspicious of the veracity of a French tale which casts the Lancastrians in an unworthy light and conflicts with what was recorded in England.

49. Gransden, Historical Writing II, pp. 389–90.

50. IH, p. 124.

51. Capgrave, Chronicle of England, pp. 302–3.

52. See ODNB, under ‘Henry IV’ and ‘Elmham, Thomas’; Wright (ed.), Political Poems, ii, pp. 118–23.

53. Foedera, ix, pp. 9–10; Issues, pp. 334–5. Henry V purchased his father’s goods on 15 May for £25,000 so he could ‘perform his will’. Henry V had not managed to pay all his father’s debts by the time of his own death in 1422. Further evidence that Henry made his second will on his deathbed may be found in Brut, ii, p. 372.

19. That I and Greatness were Compelled to Kiss

  1. PK, p. 401.

  2. Waurin, pp. 63–4.

Appendix One

  1. For Henry V, whose birth is sometimes wrongly assigned to August 1387, see Appendix Three.

  2. For a history of the royal Maundy ceremony, see the two books by Brian Robinson, Royal Maundy (1977), and Silver Pennies and Linen Towels (1992).

Appendix Two

  1. CR, p. 166.

Appendix Three

  1. Kirby, p. 16; Register 1379–1383, i, pp. 180, 222, 232; ii, p. 309. This last shows that Mary’s mother was paid for her daughter’s upkeep for a year on 31 January 1382, presumably in advance. See also CPR 1381–85, p. 95: this shows that Mary was still living with her mother on 6 February 1382.

  2. LK, p. 17.

  3. Wylie, iv, p. 166. The use of both English and Latin is common in Wylie’s appendices.

  4. Wylie, iv, p. 167.

  5. Alison Weir, Britain’s Royal Families (Pimlico edn, 2002), p. 124.

  6. DL 28/1/1 fol. 5r.

  7. CIPM, xvii, pp. 376–80. Odd IPMs also give his age as fourteen or sixteen, but most agree on ‘15 and more’.

  8. John Rylands Library, French MS 54; Allmand, pp. 7–8.

  9. Allmand, p. 7.

10. DL 28/1/2 fol. 20v., noted in Wylie, iv, p. 159. A payment to the midwife who assisted at Thomas’s birth is also noted in this account, as are cloth, kirtles, tunics and sandals for Thomas as well as his older brother.

11. DL 28/1/2 fol. 28. This is an indenture between Henry of Lancaster’s chamberlain and treasurer, dated 24 September 1386.

12. E 101/404/23 fol. 3r.

13. Allmand, p. 8. Also see the ages for Henry cited in Wylie, iii, p. 324.

14. DL 28/1/2 fol. 17r.

15. ODNB, under ‘John of Lancaster’, CP, ii, p. 70.

16. Expeditions, p. 107.

17. Wylie, iii, p. 248.

18. Goodman, John of Gaunt, p. 155.

19. Wylie, ‘Dispensation of John XXIII for a son of Henry IV’, pp. 96–7. Edmund was in his eleventh year on 15 January 1412. It is not known why he was called ‘le Bourd’ (‘the joke’, or ‘the deceipt’), nor whom the mother might have been. He was educated in London.

Appendix Four

  1. Waurin, p. 60.

  2. Given-Wilson, Usk, p. 171; Wylie, i, p. 363.

  3. ‘Deposition’, pp. 80–81.

  4. Brut, ii, p. 549.

  5. For example, the contemporary Wigmore chronicle in the library of the University of Chicago (MS 224). I am indebted to Dr Philip Morgan for this detail.

  6. It may be worth noting that a mass grave of 159 feet in length and 9 feet in depth and width (IX instead of LX) would be sufficient to bury about a thousand corpses if piled four deep.

  7. Eulogium, iii, p. 397.

  8. Gapgrave, Chronicle of England, p. 283; Annales, p. 367.

  9. On the side of the rebels, five dead knights can be identified, including those executed after the battle. These are Henry Percy himself, the earl of Worcester, Sir Richard Venables, Sir Richard de Vernon and Sir Gilbert Halsall (the last being named in the Dieulacres chronicle). On the king’s side, ten men of substance can be identified as killed in the battle: the earl of Stafford and Sir Walter Blount (according to Brut, ii, p. 549), Hugh Schirle, John Clifton, John Cockayne, Nicholas Ganville, John Calverley, John Massy, lord of Podington, Hugh Mortimer and B. Gousile (according to Annales, p. 369). The Brut also incorrectly includes Sir John Stanley, who was only wounded. See also Wylie, iv, p. 303 for other men from Cheshire and Lancashire at the battle.

Appendix Five

  1. Biggs, ‘Politics of health’, p. 197.

  2. Places and dates drawn from Biggs, ‘Politics of health’, p. 205.

  3. Places and dates drawn from Wylie, iv, p. 291.

  4. Wylie has Henry at Shrewsbury on 20 July; however, there is no evidence he was in the town. He was probably at Haughmond Abbey, five miles away.

  5. Kirby, p. 213; Douglas Biggs, ‘An Ill and Infirm King’.

  6. Except where stated otherwise, places and dates drawn from Wylie, iv, pp. 296–7.

  7. Signet Letters, p. 145.

  8. Signet Letters, p. 146.

  9. Douglas Biggs, ‘An Ill and Infirm King’.

10. E 101/405/14 fol. 7v. These were made of brass and cost 50s each. This was about four times the normal price of a saddle.

11. DL 28/1/3 fol. 13v. These cost 33s 4d each.

12. Wylie, iv, p. 299.

Appendix Six

  1. DL 28/1/2 fol. 15v. Twice medicines were bought for him on Middleton’s advice.

  2. DL 28/1/2 fol. 26r. The author of Melton’s entry in ODNB is mistaken in stating that this service was performed on behalf of Henry. The payment occurs in the section of the account devoted to Lady Derby, and the text reads domine not domini.

  3. Expeditions, p. 110.

  4. Expeditions, p. 164.

  5. Rawcliffe, Medicine and Society, p. 106. Here Rawcliffe states that Malvern was contracted from 1393; in her entry on Malvern in ODNB she states that he was employed from 1395.

  6. He was with Henry at the execution of Scrope and present at the examination of John Badby on 2 January 1409. See Wylie, ii, p. 238.

  7. Rawcliffe, Medicine and Society, p. 112; CPR 1399–1401, p. 228; CPR 1401–1405, pp. 9, 345 (Royal Mint); CPR 1405–8, pp. 22, 170.

  8. E 101/404/21 fol. 45r.

  9. Syllabus, ii, p. 544.

10. He may have been the same man as Richard Grisby, abbot of Dore, who received a safe-conduct to travel abroad in 1411. See CCR 1409–13, p. 160.

11. CPR 1408–13, p. 28. He arrived by the end of September 1408 (Wylie, iv, p. 231).

12. CPR 1408–13, p. 363.

13. Syllabus, p. 570; CPR 1408–13, p. 392 (denization), 397 (death). Henry wrote a close letter on his behalf on 4 April 1412 (CCR 1409–13, p. 269). Easter 1412 fell on 3 April, so presumably he died unexpectedly on or about the 4th.

14. Rawcliffe, Medicine and Society, p. 123. For Elias de Sabato see Wylie, iv, p. 231; Syllabus, p. 566; C. H. Talbot, Medicine in Medieval England (1967), p. 205. D’Alcobasso received the prebend of West Thurrock and the deanery of Wimborne Minster in February 1412: see Wylie, iii, p. 232; CPR 1408–13, pp. 363, 391, 392, 410.

15. Biggs, ‘Politics of health’, p. 192.

16. Wylie, iv, p. 204; Rawcliffe, Medicine and Society, p. 140.

17. Patricia Basing (ed.), Parish Fraternity Register: Fraternity of the Holy Trinity …, London Record Society 18 (1982), xvii.

18. E 101/404/21 fol. 45.

19. CPR 1399–1401, p. 255.

Appendix Seven

  1. DL 28/1/2 fol. 14v. The entry refers to ‘swages’, very probably esses.

  2. Wylie, iv, p. 116. See also the references in the note on the same page to the Lancastrian collar of the 1380s and 1390s being composed of esses.

  3. It is possible that the carved collar of esses on the supposed effigy of Sir Thomas Swynford, Katherine Swynford’s first husband, who died in 1371, is the earliest extant example of a livery collar. However, it is not certain that the grave is his, nor is it known for certain when the effigy was made. Sometimes a grave went for decades unmarked by an effigy (as in the case of Henry IV’s first wife, Mary, who died in 1394 and whose effigy was not made until 1413). As Swynford’s widow was still alive, and may have initially thought she would be buried with her husband, it is quite possible that the effigy was not carved until after Katherine had married John of Gaunt in 1396.

  4. Gothic, p. 206.

  5. Wylie, iv, p. 116.

  6. Duffy, Royal Tombs, p. 204; Nicolas, ‘Badge and Mottoes’, p. 367.

  7. There is a reference to a bishop’s sovereign archbishop in 1352. The meaning of highest authority is the same as in the secular case. The word also appears with respect to the king’s sovereign territory, and wool being the sovereign merchandise (i.e. most important).

  8. DL 27/310, dated 1394; DL 27/313, dated 1395. I am grateful to Adrian Ailes for these references.

  9. Those for 1393–4 include a payment for ‘a gold collar made for the lord of seventeen letters of ‘s’ in the form of feathers with roundels and writing in the same with a swan in a ring’ (DL 28/1/4 fol. 16v), and those for 1397–8 include a payment for ‘a collar in esses and flowers of soveyne vous de moy’ (DL 28/1/6 fol. 22v).

10. There is at least one reference, and often two or three, to ‘souveyne vous de moi’ in the following folios: DL 28/1/3 fol. 14v & 15v, DL 28/1/4 fol. 15v & 16r; DL 28/1/6 fol. 22v, 23r & 23v.

11. DL 28/1/3 fol. 15v.

12. DL 28/1/3 fol. 14v.

13. DL 28/1/3 fol. 14v (‘a short loose gown of the lord of black velvet in the form of a curve of swages of Soveyne vous de moy’); DL 28/1/4 fol. 16r; DL 28/1/5 fol. 23r; DL 28/1/6 fol. 22v; DL 28/1/4 fol. 15v also has ‘ad modum souveyne vous de moys’.

14. HKW, ii, p. 935.

15. Radford, ‘An unrecorded royal visit’, p. 262; Issues, p. 305. The collar is possibly the one shown adorning Joan’s effigy in Canterbury Cathedral.

16. DL 28/1/3 fol. 14v.

17. Nicolas, ‘Badge and Mottoes’, p. 365.

18. In this matter, compare the feathers on Henry’s seal with those on that of the Black Prince, on which it was modelled (reproduced in this volume, as plate twelve, from Nicolas, ‘Badge and Mottoes’, p. 362). The prince’s does not have the motto. Engraved additions to seal matrices were not uncommon. Kings’ first great seals were often just altered copies of their predecessors’.

19. CR, p. 40.

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