Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 / Or, Memoirs of the Life and Character of Henry the Fifth, as Prince of Wales and King of England

by James Endell Tyler

"On the 7th April, Henry is said to have addressed the King of France on the subject of his claims, and in reference to the embassy which Charles had signified his intention of sending to discuss them. No part[75] of the correspondence on this occasion occurs in the Fœdera, and it is very slightly alluded to by our historians. "To the first of those letters Charles replied on the 16th of April, and to the last on the 26th of that month; it is therefore evident that Henry did not wait for the answer to the first before the second was written. These documents occur in contemporary writers; and, as the internal evidence which they contain of being genuine is very strong, there is no cause to doubt their authenticity. Their most striking features are falsehood, hypocrisy, and impiety; for Henry's solemn assurance that he was not actuated by his own ambition, but by the wishes of his subjects, is rendered very doubtful by the fact that, on the day after the Chancellor had solicited supplies for the invasion of France, the Commons merely stated that they granted them for the defence of the realm, and the safety of the seas. The justice claimed was, that France should be dismembered of many important territories; and that, with the hand of Katharine, Henry should receive a sum as unprecedented as it was exorbitant. But this was not all, for his first demand was the crown of France itself; and it was not until he was convinced of the impossibility of such a concession, that he required those points to which his letters refer. If then there was falsehood in his assertion that his demands were dictated by the wishes of his people rather than by his own, there was hypocrisy in the assurances of his moderation and love of peace, and impiety in calling the Almighty to witness the sincerity of his protestation, and in profaning the holy writings by citing them on such an occasion. These letters, which were probably dictated by Cardinal Beaufort, are remarkable for the style in which they are written; in some places they approach nearly to eloquence, and they are throughout clear, nervous, and impressive."

In this threefold indictment, the first charge is "falsehood." The falsehood is made to consist in Henry's assertion, that he was stimulated to prosecute his claim by the wishes of his people; and the only evidence alleged to sustain this charge of falsehood, is the fact that parliament, in granting the supplies, so far from specifying that the grant was made for the purpose of recovering the King's rights in France, merely stated that it was "for the defence of the realm, and the safety of the seas."

Before a charge, fixing an indelible stain on the character of a fellow-creature, whether the individual were a king leading his armies to victory, or the humblest subject in his realm, were made on such grounds as these, it had been well,—well for the cause of truth, and well for the satisfaction of the accuser,—had the nature and force of the evidence adduced been first more carefully examined. The slightest acquaintance with the language of parliament at that time, and the most cursory comparison of the words of its members with their conduct, must satisfy every one that not a shadow of suspicion is suggested of any unwillingness on the part of the Commons to support the King in demanding his supposed rights, and vindicating them by arms. On the contrary, the very records of parliament themselves, which are cited to maintain against Henry the charge of falsehood, carry with them a full and perfect refutation of the accusation, complete in all its parts; and compel us to lament that it has been brought so hastily, unadvisedly, and inconsiderately. Our first point is to ascertain the force of those words in the grant alone cited to substantiate the charge of falsehood against Henry,—what meaning was attached to them by the Commons themselves. We shall find that the subsidy was granted in the usual formal words, "for the defence of the realm of England and so forth." In the first parliament of Henry for example, the subsidy is granted in these words: "To the honour of God, and for the great love and affection which your poor Commons of your realm of England have to you our dread sovereign Lord, for the good of the realm and its good governance in time to come, we have, with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, granted to you for defence of your realm of England," and so forth,—specifying a subsidy from wools and other merchandise; and then, in voting an entire fifteenth and a tenth, they add, "for the defence of the realm, and the safeguard of the seas." With precisely the same justice might it be argued in this case that the Commons would not vote the subsidy for "the support of the King's dignity and high estate," (though that was one of the especial grounds on which he appealed himself to the liberality of his parliament,) as it can be inferred, from the same words used in the parliament of 1415, that the Commons of England were not forward to promote the expedition to France. In that parallel case, however, we are quite sure the argument would be fallacious; because in the very same session they voted that the King's own allowance should take precedence of all other payments of annuities and other demands, to the amount of 10,000l. annually.

Another instance occurs in the parliament which met October 19, 1416, the King himself presiding: though the Chancellor, after referring with exultation to the victories of Harfleur, "the key of France," and of Agincourt, "where greatest part of the chivalry of France had fallen in battle," asks for new supplies for the express purpose of carrying on the wars in France; the Commons, in voting those supplies, as expressly state that they grant them "for the defence of your realm of England."

The same conclusion is warranted by the grants of 1417 and 1419; excepting that in these the Commons make the argument intended to support the charge against Henry's veracity still less tenable, by inserting a phrase which might seem to exclude the very object for which application for the subsidy was made. The application was made especially for the supplies necessary to carry on the war abroad; the Commons vote the subsidy "for the defence of the realm of England in especial."

But, to remove all possible doubt as to the true intent and meaning of the people of England in the grant in 1414 of two entire tenths and two entire fifteenths, we need only refer to the first act of the next parliament, which, after rehearsing the impossibility of the King effectually carrying on his wars abroad unless one tenth and one fifteenth made by the former parliament, payable on the 2nd of February, should be collected before that time, decrees that subsidy to be due and payable on the feast of St. Lucie in the next coming December. Nor is this all. The next act of this same parliament would of itself prove the utter futility of the charge against Henry, as far as that charge rests upon the evidence adduced. The parliament first state the necessity of supplying the King with more efficient means for pursuing his campaign in France, and then vote one entire tenth and one entire fifteenth,—for what? not for the purpose which they have expressly specified, but "for the defence of his said realm of England." The preamble, however, of this act shows so clearly what were the views and feelings of his subjects on this very point, as well as on the justice of his claim, that a transcript of it seems indispensable in this place.

"The Commons of the realm, in this present parliament assembled, considering that the King our sovereign lord, for the honour of God, and to avoid the shedding of human blood, hath caused various requests to be made to his adversary of France to have restitution of his inheritance according to right and justice;[76] and for that end there have been diverse treaties, as well here as beyond the sea, to his great costs; nevertheless he hath not, by such requests and treaties, obtained his said inheritance, nor any important part thereof: and since the King, neither by the revenues of his realm, nor by any previous grant of subsidy, hath had enough wherewith to pursue his right; yet, always trusting in God that in his just quarrel he shall be upheld and supported, of his own good courage hath undertaken an expedition into those parts, pawning his jewels to procure a supply of money, and in his own person hath passed over, and arrived at Harfleur, and laid siege to it and taken it, and holds it at present, having placed lords and many others there for its defence; and then of his excellent courage, with few people in regard to the power of France, he marched by land towards Calais, where, on his route, many dukes, earls, and other lords, with the power of the realm of France, to an exceeding great number, opposed him, and gave him battle; and God, of his grace, hath given victory to our King, to the honour and exaltation of his crown, of his own fair fame, the singular comfort of his faithful lieges, to the terror of all his enemies, and probably to the lasting profit of all his realm."

We may safely leave the issue to the verdict of any impartial mind. The argument drawn from the language of parliament to convict Henry of falsehood falls to the ground; it has no colour of reason in it; and no other argument is even alluded to by the accuser. It is, moreover, much to be regretted that the Editor of "The Battle of Agincourt," when he was translating so large a portion of the Chaplain's memoir, which with great reason he implicitly follows, had not begun the work of translation a few sentences only before its present commencement. Our countrymen would then have seen that, from whatever sources that Editor drew the evidence on which to build his triple charge of hypocrisy, falsehood, and impiety against Henry V, those who knew him best, and had the most ample opportunities of witnessing his character and conduct, expressed at least a very opposite opinion on the point at issue. The following are the genuine words of one who accompanied Henry from his native shores to France, was with him at the battle of Agincourt, and returned with him in safety to England. "Meanwhile, after the interchange of many solemn embassies between England and France, with a view to permanent peace, when the King found that very many negociations and most exact treaties had been carried on in vain, by reason that the council of France, clinging to their own will, which they adopted as their law, could be induced to peace by no just mean of equity, without immense injury to the crown of England, and perpetual disinheritance of some of the noblest portions of his right in that realm, though for the sake of peace he was ready to make great concessions, seeing no other remedy or means by which he could come to his right, had recourse to the sentence of the supreme judicature, and without blame sought to recover by the sword what the blameworthy and unjust violence of the French had struggled so long to usurp and keep.... He determined to regain the duchy of Normandy, which had for a long time been kept, against God and all justice, by the violence of the French."

There is, however, one declaration contained in the very volume from which these alleged letters of Henry are extracted, which makes the charge brought by the commentator on those letters still more surprising.[77] It is in that very volume positively asserted, with regard to the first rumour through France of Henry's intended invasion, that "his subjects had strongly remonstrated with him for his love of peace and rest, and his dislike of active measures, and had now insisted upon his undertaking the expedition."[78]

The charge of hypocrisy is made to rest "on Henry assuring the French monarch of his moderation and love of peace, whereas he must have been conscious that he was immoderate in his demands, and was not desirous of peace." To prove that his demands were immoderate, is not enough to sustain this accusation; to constitute him a hypocrite, he must himself have been conscious that his demands were immoderate. But how stands the probability? He was fully persuaded that the crown of France was his own; and he first demands the full surrender of his alleged rights. The Commons declare that what he sought was "the restitution of his inheritance according to right and justice," and testify that he "trusted in God for support in his just quarrel." He then, agreeably to the advice of his council,[79] (who acknowledge that what he sought to recover was "his righteous heritage, the redintegration of the old rights of his crown,") withdrawing his full demand, proposes other terms, unreasonable, no doubt, as we may view them now, but, if regarded as a substitute for the fair kingdom of France, far from stamping on Henry the brand of hypocrisy, when he made a profession of moderation and a love of peace.[80]