MARRIAGE OF HENRY V. AND KATHERINE OF FRANCE
From MS. in British Museum. Roy. 20 E vi.
There was no doubt as to the loyalty of the City under Harry of Monmouth. When the forces in France were suffering from scarcity of victuals, the citizens sent off to Rouen thirty butts of sweet wine, 1000 pipes of ale and beer, and 25,000 cups for the men’s use. And they scoured the City for any vagrant soldiers, whom they shipped off as they were pressed, to join the army. The news of Agincourt (Oct. 25, 1415) reached London on 28th October when the new Lord Mayor, Nicholas Wotton, was sworn into office at the Guildhall. He conveyed the news to the Lord High Chancellor, and they celebrated the event with a Te Deum at St. Paul’s. On the following day the Mayor, accompanied by the Aldermen, the companies, and as many of the nobility as had houses in the City, walked in procession to Westminster, where they made oblations at the shrine of St. Edward. They were careful to record that this walking on foot was not to be taken as a precedent or to supplant their riding. When the King himself returned he was received with the greatest rejoicings, rejoicings unlike those which greeted many of his predecessors, for they were real. A victorious Prince, young, gallant, successful, wins all hearts. He brought to England with him all his prisoners, a goodly company. He was met on Blackheath by the Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriffs dressed in scarlet gowns, with three hundred of the principal citizens all richly accoutred. At St. Thomas Watering the London clergy met him with their most gorgeous robes; the City was decorated with carpets and tapestry, and there were pageants with children representing angels and singing praises and psalms, while the conduits ran wine. This is William Gregory’s account of the Riding:—
“And the xxiij day of November the kyng came unto London whythe alle hys prisoners above sayd. And there he was resseyvyd worthily and royally by the mayre with all the aldermen whythe hym there. And whythe a royalle processyon he was broughte home: and there was made stondyng upon the brydge Syn George royally armyd, and at the Crosse in Cheppe was made a castelle and there with was moche solemnyte of angelys and virgenys syngyng. And soo he roode untylle that he came to Powbys and there mette whithe hym xvi byschoppys and abbatys whithe processyon and seizyd him and broughte hym uppe into thw quere whythe devoute songe, and there he offered and the Fraunsythe lordys alle so. And thaunce he roode forthe unto Westmynster: and the mayre and hys brethren broughte hym there.”
The day after this triumph the Mayor and Aldermen presented the King with the sum of £1000 in gold and deposited it in two golden basins worth half as much.
There was another grand procession of 14th June 1420, when the news arrived of the Treaty of Troyes which made Henry heir to the French crown. In February 1421 the King with his newly-married Queen, Katherine, arrived at London and lay at the Tower. Another grand procession escorted them to Westminster where Katherine was crowned. On this occasion, as on the return from Agincourt, the City assumed every appearance of joy.
As regards internal affairs during this reign, the Mayor in 1415 ordered the citizens to hang out lanthorns for the lighting of the City by night. Leadenhall Market was built at the expense of Sir Simon Eyre, sometime Mayor. He designed it as a public granary in time of scarcity, but it never appears to have been used as such. On one side was a chapel with a college endowed as a Fraternity of the Trinity, consisting of sixty priests, by whom mass was sung on market day. In the Hall was kept the common Beam for weighing wool, and a public market was held. The Hall was afterwards used as an Armoury for the City, and lastly turned into a Meat Market.
And then, alas! this gallant Prince died, being then no more than thirty-two years of age. This lamentable event, which prepared the way for all the miseries of foreign humiliation and civil war, happened at Bois de Vincennes on the 31st August 1422. The body of the King was brought over from France, and received a funeral worthy of his kingly virtues. In an open chariot it lay coffined; and above the coffin was the effigy of the King in royal robes, a crown upon his head, a sceptre in one hand and the orb in the other. The figure lay upon a rich cloth and the canopy was borne by nobles. The obsequies were performed at St. Paul’s, and the body was then taken to Westminster.
And so ended prematurely the life of the best-beloved King that ever England saw, and they were no feigned or perfunctory tears that flowed abundantly at his obsequies. Let me transcribe the words of John Hardyng in his Chronicle:—
“O good Lord God that art omnipotent,