THE REIGN OF HENRY V.
Character of the King—Oldcastle's Rebellion—Attempts to Reform the Church—Henry's Reasons for the French War—Distracted Condition of France—Henry's Claims on the French Throne—Conspiracy of Cambridge—Fall of Harfleur—The March to Calais—The Battle-field of Agincourt—Events of the Battle—Visit of Sigismund to England—French Attack on Harfleur—Anarchy in France—Alliance between the Queen and the Burgundians—Henry's Second Invasion—Final Rebellion and Death of Oldcastle—Reduction of Lower Normandy—Siege and Capture of Rouen—Negotiations for Peace—Henry Advances on Paris—Murder of Burgundy—His Son Joins Henry—Treaty of Troyes—Defeat of the English at Beaugé—Henry in Paris—His Death.
The short reign of Henry V. is like a chapter of romance. It is the history of the life of a prince who was especially a hero. Young, handsome, accomplished not only in arms but in learning, skilled in and fond of music, valorous, chivalrous, generous, and successful to the very height of human glory in arms, he lived beloved and died young, the pride of his native country, whose martial fame he raised above that of all others, and made it the wonder of the world.
The fears which Prince Henry's wildness had created in the mind of his father, who seemed to anticipate in his son another Richard II., do not appear to have been at all participated in by the people. They saw in the prince too many proofs of a clear, strong, and generous spirit to doubt of his ultimate conduct. The cold and ungenerous nature of his father, his continual demands on their purses, to put down the enemies which his criminal ambition had raised around him; his murder of Richard II., and his many executions of his opponents, members of the noblest families of the realm, had completely alienated their affections, and they looked with the most lenient eyes on the jollities and practical jokes of his more warm-hearted son. The manner in which Henry justified these expectations immediately on the death of his father must have been particularly flattering to the sagacious foresight of the public. The base and obsequious found to their astonishment that they had lost instead of won his favour. Those who apprehended his wrath by the fulfilment of stern duties, were cheered to find themselves appreciated and advanced. The upright Chief Justice Gascoigne stood first and foremost in the full sunshine of his favour.
The removal of the body of Richard II. from Langley to Westminster, where it was buried with royal pomp, has been attributed to policy rather than generosity in Henry, as trusting to convince the public by it that Richard was actually dead; but the whole of Henry's character shows that he was far above any such miserable policy; that he was as open and straightforward in following his honest convictions as he was intrepid in despising mere state tricks; and the very next fact that we have to record proves this strikingly. Henry could afford to pay respect to a dead monarch, but a living claimant to the throne was a more formidable thing. The Earl of March, the true heir to the throne, was not only living, but still a young man, and had been brought up much in Henry's society. So far, however, from entertaining any jealous fear of him, like his father, he at once received him with the utmost courtesy and kindness, gave him the most unlimited freedom, and full enjoyment of all his honours and estates. He displayed the same generous disposition in reversing the attainder of the Percies, and in recalling the young Lord Percy from Scotland to the full restoration of all his titles and demesnes. Still further; all those who during his father's time had sought to recommend themselves by a ruthless zeal for the Lancastrian interests, he removed from their offices, and supplied their places by men of more honourable and independent minds, without regard to party. No conduct could have been more just and noble, and, therefore, more wise, than that of the young king; and the consequence was, that he won all hearts to him, and fixed himself as firmly on the throne as if he had been descended in the strictest course from its true kings. Amongst the very first to support him in his royal position was the Earl of March himself, who continued to the last his most faithful subject and attached friend.
But no character is without its defective side, and that in Henry showed itself in regard to ecclesiastical reform. The followers of Wycliffe had now increased into a numerous body, under the name of Lollards. They consisted chiefly of the commonalty, and included few of the upper ranks. But amongst them was Sir John Oldcastle, a bold and able man, Sir Thomas Talbot, Sir Roger Acton, and others. Sir John Oldcastle was more commonly known as Lord Cobham, having married the heiress of that nobleman, and being called to the House of Lords in right of his wife. Lord Cobham, it appears, had, while the companion of Henry, as Prince of Wales, been so distinguished for his gaiety and humouring of all the prince's whims that his enemies called him "the ruffian knight, commonly brought in by the commediants on their stage." For a century after his time he is represented as walking the boards of the theatre in the character which Shakespeare has now transferred to Sir John Falstaff. But as the prince had reformed, so it appears had Lord Cobham also. He had embraced the principles of the Lollards, and the ability and high character of the man inspired the Church with alarm.
The Church, startled at the new phenomenon of the laity assuming the office of self-inquiry and self-decision, and still more by the obstinacy with which the people maintained this novel function, began to punish and coerce. The prelates persecuted the reformers, and the reformers, raised to a sublime sense of their own right by a nearer approach to Christian truth, rebelled as vigorously. The war of opinion assumed its bitterest aspect. The Church, too far removed from the experience of the primitive ages, had again to learn the power of persecution to produce that which it would destroy.
In a fatal hour, Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, obtained the statute De heretico comburendo, by which William Sawtrey had been burnt, and now again sought to apply the same deceptive remedy. With this intent he applied to Henry for permission to indict Lord Cobham, as the head and great encourager of the sect, for heresy, and by his public execution to strike terror into the whole body of reformers. Henry, however, was by nature too averse from persecution, and too mindful of his old friendship for this nobleman, to accede at once to so violent a measure. He undertook to have some conversation with Lord Cobham on the subject, observing very truly to the primate that gentleness and persuasion were the best means of conversion. He therefore called Cobham into his closet at Windsor, and exerted the knowledge which he had acquired of school divinity at Oxford, to convince his friend. Words probably of severity arose between the king and Lord Cobham, for the latter suddenly left Windsor and withdrew to his own house of Cowling in Kent.
Henry now seems to have lost his tenderness towards his old friend in the awakened feeling of a determination to subdue where he failed to convince, and to have given Arundel permission to take his own way with the offender; for, immediately on Lord Cobham's withdrawal, there appeared proclamations ordering all magistrates to apprehend every itinerant preacher, and directing the archbishop to proceed against Cobham according to law; that is, the recent law against heresy. This alarming measure brought back Lord Cobham to Windsor, having drawn up a confession of faith, probably in conjunction with his most eminent friends. This confession still exists, subscribed by Cobham himself, and on looking it over at this time of day, one is at a loss to discover in it what any true Catholic could object to.
But Henry would not even receive Cobham's confession. His blood was evidently up, and in that mood he was firm as a rock. He declared that he had nothing to do with confessions of faith; they belonged to bishops: forgetting that he had just before undertaken to expound his own faith in order to convert his heretical friend. Cobham then offered, in the spirit of the times, for he was a brave and experienced soldier, to purge himself from the charge of heresy by doing battle with any adversary, Christian or infidel, who dared to accept his challenge. But Henry simply asked him whether he would submit to the decision of the bishops, which he refused; but still, like a good Catholic, offered to appeal to the Pope. Henry's only answer was to leave him to the tender mercies of Arundel, who summoned him before him, and, in conjunction with his three suffragans, the Bishops of London, Winchester, and St. David's, condemned him to be burnt. But Henry still was not prepared to acquiesce in so desperate a doom on one who had spent with him so many mirthful days. He granted the reformer a respite of fifty days; and before that time had expired, Lord Cobham had managed to escape from his prison, probably by the connivance of his lenient sovereign.