Henry the Fifth

by Alfred John Church

About the middle of August Henry commenced the siege of Caen. Anticipating that the garrison would destroy the suburbs and so deprive him of the cover by help of which he could approach the town, he sent the Duke of Clarence with a strong force to occupy them. The Duke was just in time to save them from being burnt. Henry’s character for piety may have had something to do in gaining for him another advantage. The French forces had occupied St. Stephen’s Abbey, which lay outside the town. On the approach of the English they resolved to destroy it. The monks, on the other hand, were bent on saving it; and they did so by secretly introducing an English force.

On the King’s arrival before the town, an attempt was made to carry it by assault. The storming parties were repulsed with heavy loss. Henry then set his engineers to work. Mines were carried up to the walls, which were also battered by the cannon. When all was ready for an assault, he offered terms to the garrison. They were refused. The next morning the assault was delivered, every detail of the operation having been first carefully arranged by the King. It was completely successful, the attacking parties making their way into the town on both sides, and this without any great loss. From first to last the siege did not cost the English more than five hundred men, a number which contrasts strongly with the almost disastrous expense that had attended the capture of Harfleur. Henry, after duly returning thanks in the cathedral, proceeded to deal with the conquered town. The castle, which still held out, was admitted to surrender on certain conditions if not relieved in twelve days’ time. The inhabitants generally were mercifully treated. Indeed Henry’s conduct so raised his reputation for clemency that many neighbouring towns at once offered to capitulate. As usual, however, nothing was allowed to interfere with military policy. Caen was to be made a garrison, and accordingly fifteen hundred “women and impotent people, who were unserviceable and useless,” were sent out of it.

After the fall of Caen, Lisieux, Alençon, and many other places capitulated without making any attempt at resistance. A more important gain than the possession of any city or fortress was the adherence of the Duke of Britanny. On October 27th this Prince came under safe-conduct to a conference with Henry. The terms of their agreement were not precisely known; but it was certain that a truce was made which was to be in force till the following Michaelmas. It was also reported that the Duke kneeled to the King as to his suzerain, and offered to hold Britanny as a fief under the English crown, or rather the French crown as now united with that of England. Falaise, which was surrendered on January 2nd, was the last conquest of the year 1417. The castle did not capitulate until six weeks later.

It would be unnecessary to relate in detail the military operations that now followed in uninterrupted succession. During the first weeks of the new year (1417–18) Henry was active in the field, and though, with the devoutness which so strongly characterised him, he spent Lent in strict retirement, his brothers were busily employed. The great successes of the year were won at Cherbourg and Rouen. Cherbourg was taken by the Duke of Gloucester, aided by a force which the King had ordered to be despatched from some of the western harbours of England. The mere sight of its approach is said to have determined the surrender of the garrison. The siege of Rouen was one of the most important operations of the war, and as it was carried on throughout under Henry’s superintendence it demands a more particular notice.

In May the King left Bayeux and marched up the southern bank of the Seine. His first object was to possess himself of the strong position of Pont de l’Arche, situate about eight miles above Rouen, and commonly called the Key of the River. The bridge itself was held by the French in such strength that it could not have been forced without a great sacrifice of men. Henry accordingly marched some three miles lower down the stream to a place where it was divided by an island. The French followed him. While their attention was distracted by a feint (one of the ingenious stratagems with which great commanders are so ready), the island was occupied by a small force of English gunners. A cannonade drove away the troops that had been left to guard the passage, and some thousands of men then crossed without meeting any resistance. Henry now held both banks of the Seine. He constructed a bridge of boats to join his two camps, and in about three weeks’ time received the capitulation of Pont de l’Arche. Leaving a considerable garrison in it, he proceeded to invest Rouen, which was now practically isolated from the rest of France. It was a great, and, considering the strength of the place, even a perilous enterprise. But success would be of inestimable value: the possession of Rouen would mean the acquisition of Normandy.

The place was very strong. It lay, not, as now, on both sides of the river, always a circumstance adverse to effective defence, but wholly on the northern side. The walls were high and strong, and well supplied with artillery, with cannons of a size then unusual, and with catapults, an engine of war which the invention of gunpowder had not yet driven out of use. The garrison again was unusually large. There was a local militia numbering at least fifteen thousand men, and a force of not less than seven thousand regular troops and artillerymen. On the other hand, the provisioning of so large a force would in any circumstances have been a matter of difficulty. As it was, this difficulty was enormously increased by circumstances which Henry had doubtless taken into account. To the usual population of the town was added a multitude of country-folk who had flocked in from the neighbourhood to avail themselves of the shelter of the walls. And the siege was begun so early that the harvest of the year could not be secured.

Henry speedily completed the investment of the land side of the town. Each of the six gates was commanded by a strong fort, and these forts were connected by palisaded trenches. The river was rendered impassable, both above and below, to any relieving force that might attempt to approach the town. Chains and booms were stretched across it, and a flotilla was brought up from Harfleur, part of which, as it would have been dangerous to pass under the guns of the town, was dragged over land to a point above the walls. A body of Welshmen watched the town from the south bank of the river, and many hundreds of Irish kernes, lightly armed and fleet of foot, accompanied the English cavalry in their excursions into the neighbouring country. “The greater part of them,” says Monstrelet, “had a stocking and shoe on one foot only, while the other was quite naked. They had targets, short javelins, and a strange sort of knives. Those who were on horseback had no saddles, but rode excellently well on small mountain horses, and were mounted on such panniers as are used by the carriers of corn in parts of France. They were, however, miserably accoutred in comparison with the English, and without any arms which could much hurt the French, whenever they might meet them.”

This miscellaneous force was kept by their general under the strictest discipline. He was especially careful to prevent all straggling. The men were rigidly forbidden to lodge outside the military lines; and on one occasion two soldiers who were discovered transgressing this order were summarily executed.

Henry made no assault upon the town. He was too careful of the lives of his men to waste them in so perilous an enterprise. He contented himself with repelling the frequent sallies of the besieged, which the strength of his lines of circumvallation and the state of readiness in which he always kept his troops enabled him to do without serious loss. He kept his men employed indeed with the construction of siege works, with the driving of mines, and with the construction of systematic approaches to the town; but his chief reliance was a blockade. The vast population, military and civil, ordinary and extraordinary, that crowded the walls of Rouen could not be long fed on any stores that had been laid up in this place, while effectual measures had been taken against the throwing in of any relief.

The first-fruits of this policy of starvation were seen in the surrender of the fortified post of the Abbey of St. Catherine. This was given up by the force that garrisoned it within a month of the investment of the city, and given up because provisions had failed. Henry’s own camp meanwhile was abundantly supplied with provisions, furnished by stores of his own, or brought in by the parties which ravaged the neighbouring country.