A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

Policy in France. 1410.

Success of his policy.

In France he made his weight felt by alternately siding with one or other of the great parties which divided that kingdom. His natural connection would have been the Burgundians; and he first attached himself so far to that party as to send a considerable army to their assistance. A battle fought near St. Cloud (1411), in which the Armagnacs (as the friends of Orleans were now called) were worsted, for the time rendered the Duke of Burgundy the master of France. Henry chose this opportunity to change sides, and entered into an arrangement with the defeated princes, by which he was secured the full possession of Guienne. He intended at the same time to have led an army into France, and to have imitated the career of Edward III. The national danger produced a temporary friendship between the French parties, and Burgundy, at a meeting held at Auxerre, succeeded in persuading the Armagnacs to annul their arrangement with the English. Henry’s health prevented him from leading the expedition, as he intended; but an army, under the Duke of Clarence, his second son, laid waste Maine and Touraine, and was only stopped by the payment of a large sum of money. After this Clarence withdrew to complete the conquest of Guienne. Thus, though unable to fulfil his ambitious project of invasion, Henry had contrived to make his position abroad very different from what it was at the beginning of his reign, when the French could refuse him the royal title, and paralyze his home policy by a threat of invasion.

His alliance with the Church.

Persecuting statute. 1401.

Views of the nation with regard to the Church.

From one point of view, as a usurper founding a new dynasty, he had now been quite successful. As a preserver of society, he probably regarded himself as not less so. Though the son of John of Gaunt, the favourer of Wicliffe, and not averse in his youth to the doctrines of that teacher, he had seen that Lollardism pointed, not only to ecclesiastical, but to political changes. From the beginning of the reign he had determined that the preservation of the Church in all its privileges and possessions was the surest means of checking the rising democracy. He had therefore been always its staunch supporter. In pursuance of this policy, in the second year of his reign, he had given his assent to a persecuting statute, formed, it seems probable, on the petition of the clergy, without the participation of the Commons. This statute, which is known under the title of “De Hæretico comburendo,” forbade teaching and preaching without the license of a bishop, to whom also was given the right of condemning heretical books and writings, while the State undertook to carry out the bishop’s sentence. Should any person thus condemned continue in his heresy, he was to be regarded as relapsed, and handed over to the civil arm, to be publicly burned. The first victim of this statute was William Sautré, at one time parish priest of Lynn, and involved in the treason of Kent and Huntingdon. On his persisting in the errors with which he was charged, the new law was carried into effect. The persecution once begun did not cease without more victims, and produced the effect, so common in cases of persecution, of driving the Lollards into further extremes of fanaticism. The germ of socialism which no doubt existed in the Lollard doctrine, and which showed itself in the constant demand for the abolition of the wealth of the clergy, alarmed the barons, and made them strong supporters of orthodoxy. The Commons, on the other hand, although they appear to have differed in feeling at different parts of the reign, were on the whole willing enough, while supporting orthodoxy of faith, to countenance the secularization of Church property. Indeed, they went so far in this direction, that in the year 1410, in answer to the reiterated request of the King for a settled yearly subsidy for his life, they pointed out to him the advisability of appropriating some of the ecclesiastical revenues, which would be enough, they said, to supply him with 15 earls, 1500 knights, and 6200 men-at-arms for military service. They begged also that those condemned for heresy might be withdrawn from the bishop’s jurisdiction, and tried by secular courts.[85]

Henry’s jealousy of the Prince of Wales.

Henry’s death.

The popularity of the Prince of Wales, his position as head of his father’s Council, not unnaturally gave the King some uneasiness in his last years. It seems not improbable that, having been once put at the head of the Council, he virtually performed many of the duties of the Government. Documents are extant in which he seems to be regarded as the King’s representative. Moreover, the course of events seems to show certain changes of policy which can be explained in this way. It is evident from his after policy, that he was much attached to the Burgundian party in France. We may therefore credit him with the assistance sent to them, which proved so useful to them at the Battle of St. Cloud, especially as the force was commanded by his friend, Sir John Oldcastle. The sudden change of foreign policy coincides in time with the King’s altered tone in replying to the petitions of the Commons. These changes may very probably mark a determination on the part of the King to re-establish his authority, too much weakened by the position and popularity of the Prince. The stories of the Prince’s wild life in London are mentioned by writers who are almost contemporary, yet do not seem to agree well with what is certainly known of his industry in public business. They, as well as the strange travesty of Oldcastle, a good soldier and stern religious enthusiast, into Shakspeare’s jovial knight, Sir John Falstaff, are perhaps based on the malicious view taken by the orthodox of Oldcastle’s religious tendencies. It is well known that one of the charges alleged against all enthusiastic religionists is immorality. Prince Henry’s subsequent prosecution and punishment of Oldcastle would be represented as the discharge of his old favourites. The aspiring and dangerous character of the Prince, in the eyes of his father, is represented by the story which describes him as having taken the crown from his father’s bedside during one of his fits, and placed it on his own head; and having answered to the remorseful observations of the King as to the unjust manner in which he had gained it, that he “was prepared to guard it against the world in arms.” It is at all events certain that coolness existed between father and son at the close of the reign. The French expedition was intrusted, not to the Prince of Wales, but to the Duke of Clarence, and for the last year and a half Prince Henry was removed from his position as President of the Council. The disease which had so long tormented Henry came to a fatal termination on the 20th of March 1413.