On the question of money a compromise had been nearly reached. The English demand had been reduced to a million crowns, and the French offer raised to nine hundred thousand. As to territory, the difference was hopelessly wide. Limoges and its dependencies was a poor country, which it would not be worth while to accept. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the accomplished Chicheley, was spokesman for the King. He made no mention of dowry, but declared that if the French king would not give with his daughter Aquitaine, Anjou, and all that had ever appertained to the ancestors of the King of England, the said King would in no wise “retire his army nor break his journey, but would with all diligence enter into France, and destroy the people, waste the country, and subvert the towns with blood, sword, and fire, and never cease till he had recovered his ancient right and lawful patrimony.” When Chicheley sat down, the King stood up and declared his assent to what he had said, and promised on the word of a prince to perform it to the uttermost.
It was evident that he was bent on war. The concessions made by his own ambassadors had been taken back, and the conditions now demanded amounted to nothing less than a partition of France. At the beginning of the negotiations these had been put forward, in a not uncommon fashion of diplomacy, as a maximum from which it might be convenient to make large deductions; as an ultimatum, delivered by a sovereign whose army was almost ready to sail, they meant nothing less than war.
And so the Archbishop of Bruges took them. Casting aside diplomatic forms, he broke forth into an angry denunciation of English arrogance and injustice, and warned the King of the danger into which he was running. Finally, he demanded a safe-conduct to return; a mere form of speech, as such a safe-conduct was included in that already given to him and his colleagues.
English chroniclers call him “a proud and presumptuous prelate,” yet his anger was nothing but natural. Henry did not resent it, though he did not retreat one whit from his position. The safe-conduct he granted, and then added (I quote the speech as it is given by Hollingshead):
“I little esteem your French brass, and less set by your power and strength; I know perfectly my right to my reign which you usurp; and except you deny the apparent truth, so do yourselves also; if you neither do nor will know it, yet God and the world knoweth it. The power of your master you see, but my puissance ye have not yet tasted. If he have loving subjects, I am (I thank God) not unstored of the same; and I say this unto you, that before one year pass, I trust to make the highest crown of your country to stoop, and the proudest mitre to have his humiliation. In the meantime tell this to the usurper your master, that within three months I will enter into France, as into mine own true and lawful patrimony, appointing to acquire the same, not with bray of words, but with deeds of men and dint of sword, by the aid of God, in whom is my whole trust and confidence. Further matter at this present I impart not unto you, saving that with warrant you may depart safely and surely into your own country, where I trust sooner to visit you than you shall have cause to bid me welcome.”
We can hardly suppose that we have here Henry’s very words. The speech has a certain rhetorical, antithetical cast that inclines us to attribute it to the pen of a chronicler who, we may conjecture further, was writing in Latin. But it probably represents the substance of the King’s reply with sufficient accuracy.
Nothing more in the way of negotiation could be done. It only remained to press forward the preparations for war.
CHAPTER VII
PREPARATIONS FOR WAR
Henry’s preparations were begun, as many believe, very soon after his accession to the throne, and were not discontinued during negotiations which can scarcely have been intended to succeed. His situation was, on the whole, favourable for his undertaking. He had no reason to dread a hostile diversion by way of Scotland. The Scottish king had been for many years a prisoner in England, and though the chronic disturbances of the Border did not cease, he was an effectual pledge for the good behaviour of his subjects, who, if they wished to indulge their hereditary enmity to England, had to take service with the French king. The Welsh insurrection had long ceased to be dangerous, but it had not been yet suppressed, and it might become troublesome again when the royal forces were employed elsewhere. Henry did not forget this contingency. From previous amnesties offered to the rebels the name of the ringleader, Owen Glendower, had been omitted. Henry now included him in his proposition. He commissioned his “faithful counsellor, Gilbert Talbot, to treat with Owen Glendower of Wales,” and promised to receive the said Owen and “others our rebels of Wales” to his favour if they would only apply for it. This mandate to Gilbert Talbot bears date July 5th, and was issued from Porchester Castle. At home there was at least a better prospect of harmony and union than had existed for many years. The Lollards indeed still gave some trouble, but their favour with the people was not what it had been. The war spirit which had seized the nation did not suffer it to think of the grievances which had seemed so urgent and of the hopes of reform which had been so attractive a few years before. As for the dynastic enemies who in the next generation were to overthrow the house of Lancaster, they were still feeble. The prince on whose claims they relied was personally attached to Henry, and the ease with which the conspiracy of Southampton was crushed shows that at this time they were not really formidable.