Under the year 1419 Walsingham writes: “In this year the King’s stepmother, Queen Anne, was accused by certain persons of some wickedness that she had contrived to the injury of the King. All her attendants were removed, and she was committed to the custody of Sir John Pelham, who, hiring five new attendants, put her into the castle of Pevensey, there to be kept under his control.”

At Pevensey Queen Joanna remained till within a few weeks of Henry’s death. On July 13th, 1422, the King made a communication to the Council at home to the following effect:—That for reasons known to them he had for a time taken into his own hand the dower of his mother, Queen Joanna; that, doubting whether it would not be a charge on his conscience to keep the said dowry any longer, and being indeed advised not to suffer such a charge to lie, he now instructed them to make deliverance unto the said Queen wholly of her said dower. She was to appoint her own servants, so that they were the King’s liegemen. All her furniture was to be delivered to her again. She was to have five or six gowns of cloth, and of such colour as she was used to wear. As she would not choose to remain in the place where she then was, she might have horses for eleven cars to remove her goods, and she might go to any place which she might choose.

It is not difficult to see causes of an estrangement between the Queen and her stepson. Her eldest son, the Duke of Britanny, had been expected to become a warm ally of the English in the war against France. He had disappointed this hope. It would even seem that it was only by an accident that he had not fought against Henry at Agincourt. Her second son, Arthur, though an English subject, as having done homage for the earldom of Richmond, had been actually taken prisoner in that battle. Some accounts even represent him as having made an attack on the English camp during the night of the 24th of October. The Duke d’Alençon was her son-in-law. Charles of Navarre, Constable of France, was her brother. A lady so closely connected with the enemy might well become an object of suspicion. And she was, or had been, unpopular in England. Parliament had complained of the foreigners whom she kept about her person, and with such effect that the King (Henry the Fourth) had dismissed all but a few. But one cannot help thinking that her dowry had more to do with the matter than anything else. Henry, compelled even to pawn the royal jewels for the expenses of his expedition, may have looked with coveting eyes on his stepmother’s wealth, wealth which she seems to have been careful to save, and even to increase by trade. A jointure of ten thousand marks had been settled on her by the House of Commons in 1406. She enjoyed, in addition, a large income as Dowager-Duchess of Britanny. We hear of various trading ventures, especially of the export of ore from certain lead mines which her second husband had granted her. Special privileges as regards export and import duties seem also to have been accorded to her. On the other hand, it has been pointed out that her charities were unusually small for a person of her exalted station. On the whole the impression is left that she had both the opportunity and the will to accumulate wealth. Such accumulations, if they existed, could hardly have failed to attract the attention of a sovereign who was doing all that he could to procure the sinews of war. Indeed we hear of Henry directing one of his officials to send all the money that he could possibly borrow from the dower of Joanna the Queen, leaving her only money enough for her reasonable expenses and to pay any annuities that she might have granted. This injunction was followed in the same year by the arrest of the Queen. It is not unlikely that she resisted the attempt to extort the money, and that her resistance was punished by the accusation which Walsingham records. The crime charged against her was probably sorcery: “she had compassed,” it was said, “the death of our lord the King in the most high and horrible manner that could be imagined.” On the Parliamentary roll that contains this statement there follows with suspicious promptitude the confiscation of all the accused person’s property.

Henry was not in England at the time when this happened, but he cannot be acquitted of responsibility in the matter. It is certain that when he returned he did nothing to redress his stepmother’s wrongs. This was left, as has been said, till nearly the end of his life, when her imprisonment had lasted for more than three years. The only excuse that can be offered is that he probably regarded the confiscation of Joanna’s wealth as a military necessity; and where a military necessity was concerned, no other considerations were allowed to interfere with his action.

CHAPTER XIII
THE SECOND CAMPAIGN IN FRANCE

The time was now come when Henry was to make his great effort for the conquest of France. The first necessity was to provide for the safe passage of the army by clearing the Channel of the enemy’s ships. This was done by the Earl of Huntingdon. He met nine ships, which had been hired by the French king from the Republic of Genoa, sank three of them, and captured three more with their admiral and a large sum of money. On July 23rd the army started from Southampton. In addition to one thousand pioneers and other workmen, it numbered twenty-five thousand five hundred and twenty-eight combatants, of whom between sixteen and seventeen thousand were men-at-arms. The transporting fleet consisted of about fifteen hundred ships of all sizes.

No attempt was made to oppose the landing of the army. The disaster of Agincourt had so far broken the courage of the French that they had no idea of meeting the English in the field. The plan of campaign seems to have been that the fortified towns should be garrisoned as strongly as possible, and the invading force left to exhaust itself by the effort of taking them. Two or three sieges, as costly to the conquerors as that of Harfleur had been, would leave little to be done by way of active operations for the defence of the country. The plan, we shall see, failed of success. Henry was earlier in the field than he had been in the campaign of Agincourt, his army was better furnished for siege operations, he had acquired new experience, and he had the advantage of a more favourable season.

Castles and walled towns fell in rapid succession into the hands of the English. Touques, a royal castle, which was the first to be assaulted, offered some resistance. The garrison made a vigorous sally upon the besiegers, and held out for two days against the incessant cannonade with which it was plied. But on August 3rd (the army had landed on the first of the month) it was agreed that if the place were not relieved in six days it should be surrendered. Relieving force indeed there was none, and the scattered garrisons throughout Normandy soon realised the hopelessness of their situation. Damvilliers, Harcourt, Evreux, and other places were surrendered without a struggle. Monstrelet says that the other towns in the duchy were astonished at the facility of the English conquests, and that scarcely any place attempted a defence. And he goes on to give a reason which must have been at least as potent for this result as any demoralisation caused by the remembrance of the English victories. It was due, he says, to the divisions among the nobles, some of whom were for the King and some for the Duke of Burgundy, and each party was in consequence fearful of trusting the other. Moreover, the Constable had drawn off most of the forces in the district to be ready to act against the Duke, who was daily expected with a large army.

Not the least important factor in Henry’s success was the admirable order in which he kept his army. All violence and plunder were forbidden. Ecclesiastical persons were put, as might be expected, under a special protection, and to insult or rob one of this privileged class was an offence to be punished with death. To the laity was offered a similar protection if they would own the English king’s authority. This policy, carried out with the unflinching firmness which was one of Henry’s characteristics, at once secured the kindly feeling of the population and made the army a more effective instrument.