PREVIEW： Epochs #207 ｜ Henry V： Part III
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Summary
Henry V was a king of England in the early 15th century. He was the son of a previous king, Henry IV, who had been deposed by his own brother, Thomas I. Henry V was the heir apparent to the throne, but was he really the legitimate heir? And was he a good king?
Transcript
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Hello and welcome back to Epochs. This week I shall be continuing my story of Henry V, the reign
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and achievements of Henry V. Apologies for the interregnum there talking about Lawrence of
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Arabia for a few weeks. So back to the story of Henry V. So I'm going to continue the story of
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Henry V's reign before he goes to France for the Agincourt campaign. And it's a period of about a
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year, a bit more than a year, but all sorts of things happen in that time. So let's go through
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that period and hopefully we can get up to the French campaign and Half Fleur and all that sort
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of thing. But quite a few different things go on. So I should continue reading from Anne Currie's book,
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Henry V's Playboy Prince to Warrior King, because as I said before, I feel like out of all the books
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I've read, which is quite a few to be honest, I feel like she covers this period the best. Probably
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won't use her all that much for the actual military campaigning stuff. But again, for this period,
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she's very good. So she starts talking about here the financial side of things, because that's a big
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part of the story. You know, it's very expensive to have foreign wars. And medieval kings, their
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relationship with parliament, where they get given money, essentially, or get given oversight over
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levying taxes. That relationship is really important. And Henry V's father, Bolingbroke,
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Henry IV, had had a bad relationship with his parliaments, basically. They kind of never really
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trusted him or he'd asked them for too much. He'd made promises often that he'd do things in return
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for monies and then didn't do them or only did them in a half-arsed sort of a way. So his relationship
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with parliaments and therefore money was always strained. And so Henry V decides to do it a bit
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differently. Or Henry IV always overspent as well. So Anne Currie says this, quote,
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Mindful of the financial problems that dogged his father's reign, Henry kept the size and costs of
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his household low. Nor did his reign see the frequent chopping and changing in office holding,
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which his father had witnessed. A lower turnover indicated a king who was sure of his judgment
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and clear in his intentions. Conscious of the criticism his father had attracted for promoting men of
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low rank. Henry was keen to have leading nobles and clergy as the core of his council. The
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militarism of his reign, generated by the wars with France, assisted in bringing peers and leading
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knights into the king's inner circle, end quote. So that's the thing, if you remember, if you go back
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to various other kings that have been unpopular, I think of Edward II particularly, or maybe Richard
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II as well, would have people very, very close to him in his inner entourage, in his inner circle
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of power, who weren't necessarily all that aristocratic or rich or landed or powerful. And the rich and
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landed powerful aristocratic people don't like that. They feel like they're being cheated out of
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something. I mean, in a way they are. Power usually is sort of a zero-sum game. If someone else has got
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a bit of power, it's just a slice of the cake that you haven't got. So anyway, Henry IV was guilty of
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that a bit. And Henry V had seen that and decided to go the other way with it, make sure he placates
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the rich and powerful people. It's not a terrible strategy in the early 15th century.
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Currie continues, quote, Henry was a hands-on monarch, anxious to make his mark in all areas of business,
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especially in ensuring good justice, public order, and financial probity, and in promoting England's
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standing in Europe. But it was a mark of a good king to take counsel, both from regular royal counsel,
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as well as from great councils and parliament. Three days after he was crowned, in a sign of his
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return from the political wilderness to which he had been relegated before his accession, he arranged
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an unprecedented personal meeting with the nobles and knights at which he promised to rule for the
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honour of God and the prosperity of the realm. Those present, in turn, swore oaths of allegiance to him
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as king. By this ceremony, he sought to expunge any lingering doubts on his inheritance, in the light
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of his alleged attempted coup and his father's apparent preference for his brother Thomas. As a public
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gesture, and demonstrating his adherence to expected royal practice at a new accession, the king indicated
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his intention to issue a general pardon, having messengers sent out on the day of his coronation
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to proclaim it. These actions publicised his good intentions, but the political nation still needed
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time to discover what kind of king he would be. So there you can see Henry is still kind of obviously,
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feels he needs to shore up his position as king in all sorts of ways. For, you know, his father was a
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usurper, plain and simple. Well, a regicide as well. And then there was that, if you remember back,
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there was that interesting period where our Henry, Henry V, may have tried to usurp power from his
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father, Henry IV, briefly. Or during the period of 1410 into 1411, there was a strange struggle for power
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there, which is kind of a blot on his record, in a way. He needs to, he obviously feels like
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the, not just his reign, but the whole dynasty needs to be shored up in various ways. One of which
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is dealing with, dealing with, you know, openly the death of Richard, trying to come to terms with
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and drawing a line under the fact that he was dethroned and murdered, or at least died in suspicious
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circumstances. Anne Carey continues here saying, a few weeks after his accession, he had publicly
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announced that Richard II would receive a royal burial in Westminster Abbey, because he'd been
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buried somewhere else and all kings really should be buried in Westminster Abbey. You know, the death
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of Richard had tried to be swept under the carpet, basically. And instead of just keeping it that way,
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never mentioning him ever again, Henry V decides to do something about it. Try and put the record
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straight if he can. And in early December, he fulfilled the promise. It was an astute move
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in bringing Richard, Richard's body, to Westminster from its initial burial place at the Dominican
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Friary at King's Langley, and what is more, reburying him in the tomb that Richard had previously
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reserved for himself. The King aimed, unsuccessfully as it turned out, both to quash rumours circulating for
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over a decade that Richard was still alive and living in Scotland. It also gave Henry the chance
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to pay his respects publicly to a king who had behaved honourably towards him in Ireland until
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his father's invasion. Remember, Henry had actually known Richard, grown up with him as king, and, you
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know, went on that campaign with him in Ireland when everything went down. So it wasn't like Richard was
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this abstract figure from the past that he'd never known. No, he'd actually known him. Henry V even
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borrowed the banners used for his own father's burial in June at Canterbury Cathedral, underscoring
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the new king's keenness to draw the line under past conflicts, while at the same time emphasising
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the legitimacy and magnificence of his dynastic forebears, and thereby himself. His father's funeral
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was itself a spectacular event, the king ordering 90 flags, bearing the arms of all Christian
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kings and other leading men, and 50 with the images of heroes as a sign of Henry IV's place
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in the panoply of famous men. The candles at the vigil and ceremony cost the king £100, which
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is loads, with a further £160 being expended on a single item, a golden bejewalled head, to
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be given as an offering to the shrine of Thomas Becket. It's great that we've got details like
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this from the royal rolls. We know what they spent money on, and great little details which
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we don't often get much before this. Henry's reverence for his dead father is also witnessed
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in his cherishing of the latter's breviary and great bible. Although he subsequently lent
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the latter to his brigantine foundation at Sheen, he made clear in his last will that it should
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be returned at his death to his royal successor. In May 1413, with the same mixture of personal
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devotion and dynastic publicity, he had commissioned a new effigy for his mother's tomb in Leicester
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with, quote, divers' arms of the King of England, quote, even though she had died five years before
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her husband seized the throne. He also made other gestures of reconciliation early in his reign,
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releasing from house arrest Edmund, Earl of March, a possible rival claimant to the throne,
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given his descent from the second son of Edward III. By the authority of parliament, the earl was
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given full control of his estate on the 9th of June, 1413, end quote. Now that's an important move,
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because the earls of March really have got a better claim than the House of Lancaster to be the
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kings, to be the monarchs, be the King of England. As if you remember, going back to Edward III and the
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whole John of Gaunt thing, the Black Prince and the second son, Lionel of Antwerp, yet the earls of
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March, even if it did pass through a woman at one point, they're really the true inheritors of the
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throne of England, to be fair. So, I mean, Henry IV knew this, and that's why he'd locked up that this
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Edmund, Earl of March. So, for Henry V to not only just release him from prison, but give him his
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estates back, it's quite a bold move, really. You know, it shows that he's quite confident. I think
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he does. Many medieval monarch or pre-modern monarch might have easily decided to keep Edmund, Earl of
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March, in prison, or even kill him, even hundreds of years after this. During the age of Henry VIII,
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for example, he was going around killing people with far less claim than Edward, Earl of March,
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has in comparison to Henry V. So, for Henry V to release him and give him all his, essentially,
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money and land and power back, you know, it's an interesting move, isn't it? Whether it was a case
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of genuine confidence, or whether he was almost like a daring Edmund, Earl of March, to do something,
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it was probably the former of those two things. I feel like Henry V was just quite bold in the
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political and military moves he makes, and was quite confident in his position, just didn't think
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that, and correctly in this case, didn't think Edmund would do anything. If you would like to see
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