13. Henry V. and the Lollards. 1413—1414.—Henry V. was steadied by the duties which now devolved upon him. He indeed dismissed from the chancellorship Archbishop Arundel, who had supported his father against himself, and gave it to his half-uncle, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, one of the legitimated sons of John of Gaunt and Catherine Swynford (see p. [282]), but he allowed no plans of vengeance to take possession of his mind. His first thought was to show that he had confidence in his own title to the crown. He liberated the Earl of March, and transferred the body of Richard II. to a splendid tomb at Westminster, as if he had nothing to fear from any competitor. If there was one thing on which, as far as England was concerned, his heart was set, it was on strengthening the religion of his ancestors. He founded three friaries and he set himself to crush the Lollards. Sir John Oldcastle, who bore the title of Lord Cobham in right of his wife, was looked up to by the Lollards as their chief supporter. Oldcastle was brought before Archbishop Arundel. Both judge and accused played their several parts with dignity. Arundel without angry reviling asserted the necessity of accepting the teaching of the Church. Oldcastle with modest firmness maintained the falsity of many of its doctrines. In the end he was excommunicated, but before any further action could be taken he escaped, and was nowhere to be found. His followers were so exasperated as to form a plot against the king's life. Early in 1414 Henry fell upon a crowd of them in St. Giles's Fields. Most escaped, but of those who were taken the greater part were hanged or burnt. The result was a statute giving fresh powers to the king for the punishment of the Lollards. Every book written by them was to be confiscated. Three years later (1417) Oldcastle was seized and burnt. He was the last of the Lollards to play an historical part. The Lollards continued to exist in secret, especially in the towns, but there was never again any one amongst them who combined religious fervour with cultivated intelligence.
Henry V.: from an original painting belonging to the Society of Antiquaries.
14. Henry's Claim to the Throne of France. 1414.—Henry V. was resolved to uphold the old foreign policy of the days of Edward III. as well as the old religion. In 1414, whilst he amused the French court by offers of friendship, he was in reality preparing to demand the crown of France as the right of the king of England, leaving out of sight the consideration that if the claim of Edward III. had been worth anything at all, it would have descended to the Earl of March and not to himself. Everything seemed to combine to make easy an attack on France. Burgundians and Armagnacs were engaged in a death-struggle. In 1413 a riotous Burgundian mob had made itself master of Paris and the Government. Then the Armagnacs had got the upper hand, and the Duke of Burgundy was driven back to his own dominions. Henry now made an alliance with the Duke of Burgundy against the ruling powers, and prepared to invade the distracted land. Thus far he proceeded in imitation of Edward III., who had attacked Philip VI. in alliance with the Flemings. With Edward III., however, the claim to the French crown had always been a secondary consideration. He went to war because French sailors plundered English ports and the French king assisted the Scots. Henry had no such reason to urge. He went to war because he was young and warlike, because the enterprise was easy, and because foreign conquest would unite all Englishmen round his throne. When once the war was begun he was certain to carry it on in a different spirit from that of Edward III. Edward had gone to weaken the plunderers by plundering in return, and to fight battles only when they happened to come in his way. Henry went with the distinct resolution to conquer France and to place the French crown on his own head. Every step which he took was calculated with skill for the attainment of this end. Of immediate, perhaps of lifelong, success Henry was as nearly certain as it was possible to be. Yet, if he had remembered what had been the end of campaigns adorned by the brilliant victories of Creçy and Poitiers, he might have known that all that he could do would end in ultimate failure, and that the day must come when divided France would unite to cast out, if not himself, at least his heirs. It was significant that when his Chancellor, Beaufort, announced to Parliament the king's intention, he took for his text, after the manner of political speakers in those days, 'Let us work while it is called to-day.' Henry was not inclined, as Edward I. had been, to take thought for a distant morrow.
15. The Invasion of France. 1415.—In 1415 Henry openly made his claim and gathered his army at Southampton. He there detected a conspiracy to place the Earl of March on the throne, which had been formed by Lord Scrope and Sir Thomas Grey, in combination with March's brother-in-law, the Earl of Cambridge, a son of the Duke of York (see genealogy at p. [327]), the son of Edward III. All three were executed, and then Henry sailed for France. He landed at the mouth of the Seine and besieged Harfleur. Harfleur fell after an heroic defence, and the Seine valley lay open to Henry.[29] Over two-thirds of his army, however, had perished from dysentery and fever, and with no more, even at the highest calculation, than 15,000 men, he was unable to take advantage of the opportunity to march upon Paris. His brother the Duke of Clarence, urged him to return to England, but Henry knew that if he went back with baffled hopes his throne would hardly stand the shock. He resolved to march to Calais. It might be that he would find a Creçy on the way.