CHAPTER ELEVEN
Raoul de Gaucourt’s defiant refusal to surrender Harfleur merely hardened Henry V’s resolve. In the words of the chaplain, he decided “to proceed to sterner measures against this stiff-necked people whom neither persuasive kindliness nor destructive harshness could make more amenable.” That very evening, Henry sent his trumpeters throughout the camp to proclaim that the final assault would begin the next morning and that every sailor in the fleet, as well as every soldier in the army, should make his preparations. At the same time, he ordered an even heavier bombardment than usual, to prevent the French from sleeping and make them easier to defeat the following day.1
This prompt reaction to the rejection of the king’s terms finally brought Harfleur to its knees. De Gaucourt, d’Estouteville and the military contingent may not have wished to surrender, but the citizens could not take any more. Terrified at the prospect of the town being taken by force, with all the terrible reprisals authorised by Deuteronomy, the town council determined to offer a conditional surrender. Before dawn broke on Wednesday 18 September, the day for which the final assault had been planned, a group of fourteen burgesses carried a message to the duke of Clarence, offering to render the town into his hands if they had received no aid from their king by Sunday 22 September.2
There is something of a mystery about this surrender. The English chaplain, who was an eyewitness, merely noted that the besieged entered into negotiations with the king, and does not mention the role of the duke of Clarence or the burgesses. Thomas Walsingham, the author of the St Albans Chronicle, written in the early 1420s, describes the offer being made to Clarence, but attributes it to a single herald commissioned by de Gaucourt and the other lords in the garrison. The monk of St Denis, writing between 1415 and 1422, ascribes the agreement of terms entirely to the intervention of the duke of Clarence.3 But why should the offer to capitulate have been made to Clarence, when the king himself was present at the siege and he alone could authorise the cessation of the fighting? The monk hinted that it may have been because Clarence was perceived as a more sympathetic figure: it was widely known in France that he had favoured the Armagnac cause during his father’s lifetime. But in fact there was probably a very different explanation. Several French sources imply that treachery was at work. The chronicler of Ruisseauville, near Agincourt, reported that “it was commonly said that Clignet de Brabant [an Armagnac leader and sometime admiral of France] and the sire de Gaucourt with the constable of France had sold it.” This can be dismissed as malicious gossip, like the rumours that Charles d’Albret had treasonably entered into an agreement with Henry V not to resist the English landing.4 But the monk of St Denis had learnt, from de Gaucourt and d’Estouteville, that the English actually began their 18 September assault “on the south side” and that the besieged resisted them bravely for three full hours, until those “on the other side” of the town opened the gate to the enemy. If this version of events is true, it would explain why the offer to surrender was made to Clarence, instead of to Henry himself, as would have been more appropriate and usual. The gate “on the south side,” where the assault was launched, was the Leure gate, where both de Gaucourt and Henry himself were based. The gate “on the other side,” from which the delegation issued to offer terms, was the Rouen gate, where Clarence was in command. The fact that the assault “on the south side” continued for three hours could therefore be explained by the length of time it must have taken to get the message to Clarence and from him to the king.5
Additional support for this interpretation of events comes from the letter that the king himself wrote to the mayor and aldermen of London on the day of the formal handing over of Harfleur.
. . . it was our full purpose to make assault upon the town on Wednesday the 18th day of this month of September; but those within the town had perceived it, and made great instance, with means which they had not employed theretofore, to have conference with us. And to avoid the effusion of human blood on the one side and on the other, we inclined to their offer, and thereupon we made answer unto them, and sent to them the last conclusion of our will; to the which they agreed, and for the same we do render thanks unto God, for we thought that they would not have so readily assented to the said conclusion. And on the same Wednesday there came by our command out of the said town the Sieurs de Gaucourt, d’Estouteville, Hankevile [that is, de Hacqueville], and other lords and knights, who had the governance of the town, and delivered hostages; and all those . . . were sworn upon the body of Our Saviour that they would make unto us full deliverance of our said town . . .6
The very fact that the king commanded de Gaucourt to come out of the town suggests that the latter had not initiated the submission. Indeed, it seems likely that he had no prior knowledge of the burgesses’ intention to surrender, despite being captain of the town, and therefore the one who should ultimately have been responsible for making the decision. Nevertheless, treachery is perhaps too strong a term to describe the action of the civilian population. They had fought long and bravely, and endured great hardship for almost five weeks; they had lost their houses, their livelihoods and, in many cases, their lives. They had no wish to see their wives and daughters raped or their menfolk murdered by a horde of Englishmen salivating at the thought of plunder. Unlike de Gaucourt and the rest of the military garrison, they were not accustomed to putting their lives on the line, and they did not have to pay lip-service to romantic chivalric notions of glory and honour. There was nothing to say that they, too, had a duty to fight to the death.
Even if de Gaucourt had wanted to fight on to the bitter end, the town council’s decision to surrender forced his hand. He could not continue to hold Harfleur if he did not have the support of those within its walls. He had lost as many as a third of his own men; those who remained were exhausted, famished and sick.7 Henry had made it clear from the outset that he regarded the defenders of Harfleur as rebels against his authority, rather than loyal subjects of another country resisting a foreign invasion. Like the Burgundian captain of Soissons, Enguerrand de Bournonville, who had been executed by their own Armagnac forces the previous year, they could expect no mercy:8 the laws of war authorised them to be treated as traitors, and their lives and everything they owned would automatically be forfeit. Knowing all this, de Gaucourt had to weigh in the balance the damage to his personal reputation and the possibility that he and the other military leaders faced the gallows against the universal bloodbath that would be the inevitable consequence of further futile resistance. However unwillingly, de Gaucourt decided to submit.
With d’Estouteville and Guillaume de Léon, sire de Hacqueville, de Gaucourt entered into negotiations with the king’s representatives, agreeing to terms which, after a fashion, allowed him to salvage something of his honour. There was to be a truce on both sides until one o’clock on Sunday 22 September. Harfleur was to be allowed to send one last request for help to the king or the dauphin, but if the appointed time had elapsed without either of them coming to lift the siege by force of arms, then the town, its people and all their possessions would be unconditionally surrendered to the king’s mercy. In that event, at least the burden of responsibility for the surrender would not fall entirely on de Gaucourt’s shoulders.
Later that same day a solemn procession made its way to the foot of the walls. At its head was Benedict Nicholls, bishop of Bangor in Wales, who was carrying the Eucharist, accompanied by all the royal chaplains, including our chronicler, wearing their ecclesiastical robes. The earl of Dorset, Lord Fitzhugh and Sir Thomas Erpingham followed, carrying the indentures in which the terms were set out. As they reached the foot of the walls, the bishop cried out, “Fear not! The king of England has not come to lay waste to your lands. We are good Christians and Harfleur is not Soissons!” As Henry had commanded, the representatives of the town and garrison, led by de Gaucourt, then emerged, and both parties swore on the Eucharist to observe the articles of the agreement and signed the indentures. Twenty-four French hostages “from the more noble and important among them,” including d’Estouteville, were handed over as pledges and a safe-conduct was given to the sire de Hacqueville, and twelve of his entourage, to allow them to go to seek help for Harfleur. The king absented himself from all these proceedings and did not even appear when the hostages were brought to his tent, though he allowed them to dine there and ordered that they were to be treated honourably until de Hacqueville returned.9
For the next few days an eerie silence reigned over Harfleur; the deadly hail of missiles had ceased, the cannon were silent, the catapults still. Even now, however, there could be no real relaxation for de Gaucourt and his men. According to the terms of the truce, they could not fight and they could not repair their shattered fortifications, but they had to prepare themselves for the possibility of further military action. They may have tried to snatch some rest, but how could they sleep when their fate stood on a knife’s edge? Would the blood-red oriflamme suddenly appear on the horizon, heralding the approach of a relieving army? Would there be battle? Or would they have to face the shame of surrender, imprisonment in a foreign country, even execution?
The man who carried all the hopes of Harfleur with him made his way as swiftly as he could to Vernon, where the dauphin was still in residence. There de Haccqueville made an emotional plea for aid, with the added poignancy that, this time, there was no doubt as to the fate that awaited Harfleur. The dauphin’s response was brief and to the point. The king’s army was not yet fully assembled and it was not ready to give such help so quickly. And so de Hacqueville had to return, empty-handed and with a heavy heart, to tell de Gaucourt that his mission had failed and that the gallant defence of Harfleur had all been in vain.10
The sense of shock and shame that the surrender of Harfleur to the English inspired throughout France was so great that those who knew nothing of the circumstances were quick to blame and condemn de Gaucourt and his men for their failure to preserve the town. Only the monk of St Denis sprang to their defence, with an impassioned and sympathetic paean of praise. It ought to be remembered how often they repeatedly made daring sorties against the enemy, and how with their utmost strength they drove back every attempt to gain entry into the town through underground mines dug out in secret. Without any doubt, these men were worthy of the highest praise for their endurance of every adversity: even as the roofs of the buildings were crashing in around them, they remained continuously in arms, sustained by the most meagre rations and spending their nights without sleep, so that they were prepared to repel any sudden assaults.11
At the appointed hour, one o’clock, on Sunday 22 September, Henry V seated himself on a throne draped with cloth of gold, under a pavilion of the same material, on the hillside above the Leure gate. A great number of his magnates and nobles, all clad in their richest finery, took their places around him, and at his right hand stood Sir Gilbert Umfraville, holding aloft the king’s great helm with its golden crown. A route, lined with armed soldiers to hold back the crowds of Englishmen gathered to watch the spectacle, had been marked out between the pavilion and the town gate for the representatives of Harfleur to make their approach to the king. On the hour, the gate opened and de Gaucourt emerged at the head of a small procession of between thirty and forty knights and leading burgesses. To add to their humiliation, they had been forced to leave their horses, weapons, armour and all their goods in the town, so they had to climb the hill on foot, clad only in their shirts and hose. According to Adam of Usk, they were also obliged to wear a hangman’s noose about their necks, the traditional symbol of the fact that their lives were now in the king’s hands.12
When they reached the royal throne—a process that must have taken some time, since the hillside was steep and many of them, including de Gaucourt himself, were seriously ill—they all fell on their knees and de Gaucourt presented the keys of the town to the king with these words: “Most victorious Prince, behold here the keyes of this Towne, which after our promise I yealde unto you with the Towne, my selfe, and my companie.” Henry did not deign to touch the keys himself, but ordered John Mowbray, the earl marshal, to take them. He then addressed de Gaucourt, promising him that “although he and his company had, in God’s despite and contrary to all justice, retained against him a town which, being a noble portion of his inheritance, belonged to him, nevertheless, because they had submitted themselves to his mercy, even though tardily, they should not depart entirely without mercy, although he said he might wish to modify this after careful consideration.” The king then ordered that de Gaucourt’s party and the hostages who had been handed over earlier as guarantors for the truce should be taken to his tents, where all sixty-six were to be fed “with some magnificence,” before being distributed as prisoners among his men.13
Immediately after de Gaucourt had formally surrendered the keys of Harfleur, his standard and those of his companions and of France, which had flown over the gates of the town throughout the siege, were taken down. In their place, the standards of St George and of the king were raised, no doubt to the cheers of the watching English army. Henry then handed over the keys to the earl of Dorset, whom he had appointed warden and captain of Harfleur.
As was so often the case with Henry V, everything about the formal surrender of Harfleur was designed to achieve a particular purpose. The ritual humiliation of his French prisoners—denied even the ordinary trappings of their rank as they were forced to take the long walk through the victorious army—was intended to serve as an example to any other town or garrison that dared to resist him. The splendid spectacle of the king, enthroned in majesty on high and surrounded by the chivalry of his realm, reinforced the message of his speech. He had enforced his just claims by the sword and had won Harfleur because his cause was righteous; the French had lost it because they had acted contrary to God’s will and to justice. Even his offer of leniency, hedged about as it was by the suggestion that it might be withdrawn “after careful consideration,” was a powerful demonstration that mercy could not be expected, but was the prerogative of the king alone to grant.
It had not originally been Henry’s intention to enter Harfleur himself. He had expected to be able to continue in the field and carry his campaign further into France, but the unexpected duration of the siege and the epidemic of dysentery sweeping through his army forced him to rethink his decision. It was typical of the man that, after all the regal pomp and splendour of the ceremonial around the surrender, he now chose to forgo the customary triumphal entry into the conquered town. The day after the formal surrender, he rode as far as the gates, dismounted, removed his shoes and, like a penitent or pilgrim, made his way barefoot to the ruined parish church of St Martin, where he gave devout thanks to God for his victory.14
Having toured the town and seen at first hand the devastation that his bombardments had caused, Henry turned his attention to the civilian population. All those in holy orders were allowed to go free and unmolested. Those burgesses who were prepared to swear an oath of allegiance to him were allowed to keep their possessions, though, like the French inhabitants of Calais, they were not permitted to retain ownership of any residential or commercial property within Harfleur or their rights as citizens to self-government, tax exemptions and trading privileges. The town’s charters and the title deeds of its inhabitants were all publicly burnt in the marketplace as a symbolic demonstration of the introduction of the new regime. Those of the richer burgesses who would not accept the king’s terms, of whom there were at least 221, were imprisoned until they paid their ransoms, some of them subsequently being sent to Calais to await transportation to England.
The poorer inhabitants and those who were sick, together with the women and children of every rank, were all expelled from the town. Though this might seem an excessively harsh measure, contemporaries accustomed to the brutality of medieval warfare regarded it as unexpectedly lenient. Each one was given a small sum of money to purchase food on the journey and, “taking pity on their sex,” the women were allowed to take as much of their property as they could carry. Some two thousand people were expelled from Harfleur in this way, “amid much lamentation, grief, and tears for the loss of their customary although unlawful habitation.” Aware that they were vulnerable to the depredations of his own troops, Henry provided an armed guard to escort them beyond the limits of his army to Lillebonne, fourteen miles away, where Marshal Boucicaut was waiting to send them by boat down the Seine to the safety of Rouen. “And thus, by the true judgement of God,” the chaplain noted, “they were proved sojourners where they had thought themselves inhabitants.”15
Henry was equally merciful to those who least expected it. Around 260 French men-at-arms had survived the siege, many of them gentlemen of noble Norman or Picard families, whose ransoms would be of considerable value. Instead of committing them to prison or sending them to England, Henry released them on parole. The reasons for this act of clemency were both pragmatic and humanitarian. “As the greater part of us were extremely sick,” de Gaucourt later recalled, “the King of England granted us indulgence, upon our swearing, promising, and sealing an obligation that we would all find our way to Calais, and appear before him on the approaching day of St Martin.” It was a calculated risk to release them, but with so many of Henry’s own troops about to be invalided home, he could not spare the men to look after such a large number of diseased prisoners. He needed as many able-bodied men as possible to defend Harfleur against any attempt to retake it. Alternatively, if he took the prisoners with him to Calais, they would be a major encumbrance, slowing him down and requiring constant guard and medical attention. On 27 September, after five days in custody, and having sworn to abide by the conditions set down in writing by the king’s negotiators, including the fact that they were to surrender themselves as his prisoners at Calais on or by 11 November, they were allowed to return home.16
The king had not yet finished with Raoul de Gaucourt, however, who had one more task to perform before he, too, obtained his temporary release. As the former captain of the captured town, he was required to carry a message from Henry V to his master, the dauphin. The message was a challenge to fight a single combat that would decide the future of France. Written as a letter under the privy seal, from “our town of Harfleur,” the challenge opened with the words, “Henry, by the grace of God, king of France and of England, and lord of Ireland, to the high and powerful prince, the dauphin of Guienne, our cousin, eldest son of the most powerful prince, our cousin and adversary of France.” Out of reverence to God and to avoid the effusion of human blood, Henry went on, he had many times and in many ways sought to obtain peace. And considering also that the result of our wars is the death of men, the destruction of countryside, the lamentation of women and children, and so many evils generally, that every good Christian ought to grieve for it and take compassion, especially we whom this matter touches most nearly, and ought to make every effort and diligently seek to find all the ways that man can devise to avoid these said evils and disadvantages, so that we gain the favour of God and the praise of the world. As Charles VI, to whom the challenge ought to have been sent, was not capable of answering it, Henry proposed to the dauphin that the quarrel should be put to a trial by battle “between our person and yours.” Whoever won would have the crown of France on the death of Charles VI. A verbal message must have accompanied this letter, for the dauphin was informed that Henry would wait for an answer at Harfleur for eight days, after which time the offer would lapse.17
Henry’s challenge has been much derided by historians as bombastic, ridiculous, frivolous and obsolete. In fact, it was none of these things. Trial by battle had an ancient and venerable tradition: for centuries it had been part of the judicial process in cases where neither side in a dispute could offer evidential proof to allow a jury or court to decide their case. When it was one man’s word against another’s, then the only way to settle the quarrel was to offer it for divine judgement. God would not permit an injustice to be perpetrated, the argument went, so the victory would fall to whichever party had right on his side—the reason why trial by battle was also known in medieval times as the judicium dei, or the judgement of God, a concept that had particular appeal for a king as deeply pious and absolutely convinced of the justice of his cause as Henry V. Henry’s own family had a long history of involvement in judicial combats. His great-grandfathers Edward III and Henry, duke of Lancaster, had both issued and received challenges to settle the wars in France by this method. His great-uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, was responsible, as constable of England, for drawing up the standard set of rules governing such combats. His own father, when duke of Hereford, had been on the brink of fighting a judicial duel against Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, in 1398, when Richard II forbade it and banished him from the realm.18Though the practice became increasingly rare, the right to trial by battle was not legally abolished in England until 1819.
Because the trial by battle was fought within lists and under strict rules, it has often been confused with tournaments and jousts, which explains why some historians have been so contemptuous of Henry V’s challenge to the dauphin. Challenges to perform feats of arms, such as those which passed between the seneschal of Hainault and Sir John Cornewaille, were highly regarded in chivalric circles because mere participation bestowed honour on those involved, whatever the outcome. Even if these were fought à outrance, with the ordinary weapons and armour of war, the objective was not to kill the opponent, only to prove one’s own courage and skill. Trial by battle, on the other hand, was emphatically not a chivalric game: it was a legally binding judgement. A defeated participant, if he was not killed in the course of the combat, could be removed from the lists and executed as a convicted criminal. Those who took part in judicial duels did so reluctantly and because their reputation had been impugned; failure meant death but also dishonour.
Henry V’s challenge was not an empty gesture, but a deadly serious undertaking. If he could prove his claims to France in single combat, instead of with an army, then he would save lives on both sides. If the dauphin had accepted the challenge, there is no question but that Henry would have fought in person—and won. If he did not, then Henry could still circulate copies of his challenge to all his friends and potential allies as proof of his wish to be reasonable and of his determination to avoid bloodshed at all costs.19 Once again, Henry had demonstrated his mastery of the art of propaganda, wrongfooting the dauphin and claiming the moral high ground. The sin in prolonging the war would fall upon the dauphin’s head and his reputation would be tainted with the charge of personal cowardice.
On 27 September de Gaucourt set off to deliver the letter of challenge to the dauphin, who was still lingering at Vernon, some twenty-eight miles south of Rouen and approximately sixty-eight miles upriver from Harfleur. He was accompanied on this mission by William Bruges, Guyenne king of arms, which begs the question why de Gaucourt was sent at all. Delivering a challenge was one of the principal duties of a herald. Bruges was highly experienced and had no need of any escort or assistance. That de Gaucourt was forced to accompany him can only be attributable to Henry’s desire to confront the dauphin with the consequences of his own inaction. He would hear at first hand and from one of his own loyal lieutenants—now an English prisoner—that Harfleur was in enemy hands. Henry may also have hoped that de Gaucourt would be able to persuade the dauphin to accept the challenge, or at least to make some conciliatory gesture to buy himself peace.20
De Gaucourt and Guyenne were kept waiting for an interview with the dauphin, and neither of them had returned to Harfleur by the time the eight days Henry had set as the limit for a response had elapsed. (By contrast, de Hacqueville had managed to get to and from Vernon within three days.)21 The challenge placed the dauphin in a dilemma. He had no intention of accepting it, but he could not turn it down without appearing a coward. Unable to commit himself to either of these courses, he hid his head in the sand and left the challenge unanswered.22 One can imagine that a knight as committed to the chivalric ideal as de Gaucourt would be unimpressed by this demonstration of the dauphin’s singular lack of courtly qualities. It must have been humiliating to compare the shortcomings of his own leader with the exemplary behaviour of Henry V.
Having delivered his message, de Gaucourt was at least spared the necessity of taking back the dauphin’s reply. Prohibited from taking any further part in military action against his captors, there was nothing else he could do except retreat to his sickbed until he was required to surrender himself at Calais. For him, the war was over.
Henry, in the meantime, had not been idle as he waited at Harfleur for the dauphin’s reply. On the day of the formal surrender, as we have seen, he had written to the mayor and aldermen of London to inform them that, “by the good diligence of our faithful lieges at this time in our company, and the strength and position of our cannon, and other our ordnance,” he had succeeded in bringing about the town’s capitulation. The expulsion of its inhabitants had prepared the way for its repopulation with English settlers, the intention being to create a second Calais. On 5 October proclamations were made in London and other large towns throughout England, offering free houses and special privileges to any of the king’s subjects who were prepared to take up residence in Harfleur. The objective was to find merchants, victuallers and tradesmen, so that the town could become both self-reliant and part of the trading nexus linking London with the continent through Calais and Bayonne. Among those who were granted property in the town were the king’s clerk Master Jean de Bordiu, who was presented to the parish church of Harfleur, and Richard Bokelond, a London merchant, who was given an inn in the town called “the Peacock” as a reward for assisting the king during the siege with two of his ships.23
Urgent orders were also given to reprovision the town. On 4 October a messenger was sent “with the greatest speed” bearing a commission under the king’s great seal to the constable of Dover Castle and the warden of the Cinque Ports, which ordered them to go in person to all the neighbouring ports on the south coast of England “where fishermen commonly reside and dwell, and strongly enjoin and command all and singular the fishermen . . . without delay to proceed to the town of Harfleu [sic] with their boats and other vessels, and with their nets, tackle, and other things, necessary to fish upon the Norman coast, near the town aforesaid, for support of the King’s army there.” Two days later John Fysshere of Henley was ordered to take supplies of wheat to Harfleur at the king’s cost, and six days after that John Laweney, a London grocer, was similarly ordered to send “provisions, arms and necessary stuff.” To ensure that stocks remained plentiful, orders were issued prohibiting anyone in England from “taking over any wheat or grain to any foreign parts except the towns of Calais or Harflewe in Normandy without the special command of the king.” Those shipping supplies to Calais and Harfleur were also compelled to provide proof of delivery, so that they could not fraudulently divert their cargoes elsewhere.24 Reginald Curteys, the former supplier of Calais who, earlier in the year, had been entrusted with the task of hiring ships in Holland and Zeeland for the invasion, was appointed as the official victualler of Harfleur, and stocking the garrison and town thereafter became his responsibility. After their enforced weeks of military service, many of the ships that had served to carry troops and supplies during the siege were now free to return to their original purpose. Two of the king’s own vessels, the Katherine de la Tour, which had sailed with the fleet, and the newly commissioned Holy Ghost, which had not been ready in time for the invasion, were kept busy plying the cross-Channel trade, bringing beer and wine to the garrison.25
The biggest problem facing Henry at this point was not so much supplies as men. Dysentery continued to make huge inroads into his army, greatly reducing the numbers of those fit to fight. Even after the siege had ended, his men were still dying at an alarming rate and many more were incapacitated by sickness. Their presence in the army being both a hindrance and an unwarranted drain on precious resources, Henry took the decision to send them home. This in itself was a major logistical problem. There were literally thousands of sick and dying. Each retinue captain was therefore required to muster his men and certify the names of those who were unable to continue in active service to the king and his clerks. The sick were then separated out from those who were still fit and well, and given the royal licence to return home. Some of the ships that had blockaded Harfleur from the sea were entrusted with the task of transporting these men back to England, and the evacuation began within a week of the town’s surrender. The English chaplain estimated that some five thousand of Henry’s men were invalided home from Harfleur. Though he was usually well informed about such things, this figure may be an exaggeration. Lists of the sick who received licence to return home have survived, but they are incomplete. Even so, they record 1693 individual names, including three of the king’s young earls, Thomas, earl of Arundel, John Mowbray, the earl marshal, and Edmund, earl of March.26 Arundel was one of the king’s closest associates, having served him in peace and war for the previous ten years, and been treasurer of England since Henry’s accession. He was now mortally sick and, although he returned to England on 28 September, he never recovered. He died at home at Arundel Castle on 13 October, his thirty-fourth birthday. (As he died childless, his great estates, which had made him one of the richest men in the country, were divided between his three sisters and his title passed to his second cousin.) Mowbray and March were more fortunate. Both recovered, the former with the aid of numerous remedies for the pestilence, the flux and vomiting, purchased at great expense from a London grocer.27 Arundel cannot have been the only man to have died in England of dysentery contracted during the siege, but it is impossible to discover the fate of the vast majority of the rest, particularly those of low rank. Once their names had appeared on their licences to return home, they disappeared into oblivion as far as records are concerned.
It is equally difficult to establish how many died of the disease at Harfleur. In addition to Richard Courtenay, bishop of Norwich, and Michael, earl of Suffolk, the names of at least eight knights who brought their own retinues are known: William Beaumond from Devonshire, Roger Trumpington from Cambridgeshire, Edward Burnell from Norfolk, John Marland from Somerset, John Southworth, Hugh Standish and William Botiller from Lancashire and John Phelip from Worcestershire.28 Sir John Phelip, too, had been a close associate of the king. He had been a member of Henry’s household when he was prince of Wales and was one of the select few chosen to be made a Knight of the Bath at his coronation in 1413. He had taken a leading role in the earl of Arundel’s expedition to France in 1411 and was in the Anglo-Burgundian force that defeated the Armagnacs at St Cloud; for the Agincourt campaign he had brought a substantial retinue of thirty men-at-arms and ninety foot archers. Phelip, who was a nephew of Sir Thomas Erpingham, the steward of the king’s household, was married to Alice Chaucer, the only child of Thomas and granddaughter of the poet, though she was only eleven years old when she was widowed. Phelip himself was thirty-one when he died. His body was taken back to England and interred at Kidderminster under the proud, if ungainly, Latin epitaph: “Henry V loved this man as a friend; John was bold and strong and fought well at Harfleur.”29
Few names of the less eminent victims of dysentery have survived—and these only because their deaths were recorded on the muster rolls so that the exchequer did not have to continue paying their wages. The exchequer clerks attempted to make a distinction between those who “died” of the disease and those who were “killed” as a result of enemy action, though it is unclear how reliable their efforts were; combined with the incomplete nature of the records themselves, this makes it difficult to reach any firm conclusions as to how many died. Monstrelet hazarded a guess at two thousand, a figure that was taken up and repeated as fact by other chroniclers. This may be accurate. If modern rates of mortality among untreated victims of dysentery are taken as a guide, it is likely that Henry lost between 10 and 20 per cent of his army, which translates as something in the region of 1200-2400 men. Whatever the actual numbers, the chroniclers on both sides of the conflict were all united in one belief: more men died from disease at Harfleur than from the fighting throughout the campaign.30
Occasionally we get a glimpse of the scale of the loss in terms of death and sickness to individual companies. Arundel’s retinue, as one might expect, given the contagious nature of the disease, was badly hit. Out of a total of 100 men-at-arms, two died at Harfleur and twelve (or possibly eighteen) were invalided home; of the original 300 archers who also accompanied him, thirteen died and a further sixty-nine were sent home sick, together with three of his minstrels. In other words, almost exactly a quarter of his retinue were casualties of the siege. Mowbray’s company was even harder hit: death and sickness reduced it by almost a third. Of the fifty men-at-arms he brought with him, three died during the siege and thirteen, including the earl himself, were sent home ill; of his 150 archers, as many as forty-seven were invalided back to England. Similarly, John, Lord Harington, who had brought a retinue of thirty men-at-arms and ninety archers, had to return home sick from Harfleur himself on 5 October, together with ten of his men-at-arms and twenty of his archers. The effect on smaller retinues was equally devastating. Sir Ralph Shirley also lost a third of his men: he had originally mustered only six men-at-arms and eighteen archers; three of the former, including himself, and six of the latter were invalided home. Sir Rowland Lenthalle, a Herefordshire knight, brought a retinue of twelve men-at-arms, of whom two died at Harfleur and three more were sent home sick; his thirty-six archers fared much better, with only two of them dying during the siege. Thomas Chaucer, as we have seen, brought twelve men-at-arms and thirty-seven archers; two of the former died of dysentery at Harfleur and Chaucer himself was invalided home, but all of his archers survived unscathed. Dysentery was not, as one might have expected, a disease that always afflicted the lowest ranks hardest.31
If such figures can be taken as a general trend—and there must have been retinues that suffered both more and less—then we can assume that, in total, the king lost between a quarter and a third of his men to dysentery as a result of the siege. There were other casualties, including, of course, those who were killed in action, and those like Nicholas Seymour, brother of the lord of Castle Cary, who was captured at Harfleur and was still believed to be alive and a prisoner in France at the end of December. Additionally, as the chaplain pointed out, there were those who, to the king’s great indignation, “out of sheer cowardice, leaving or rather deserting their king in the field, had stealthily slipped away to England beforehand.”32
The need to garrison Harfleur was a further drain on manpower. Having gained the town at such cost, it was critically important that it should stay in English hands. It was therefore necessary to ensure that it was adequately manned to prevent its recapture the moment the main English army departed. Henry decided that the earl of Dorset should have a force of 300 men-at-arms and 900 archers to safeguard its defences—a garrison that was almost two and a half times the size of that at Calais. How the men were chosen is not known, but it is likely that it was on a volunteer basis. This is suggested by the fact that, rather than simply assigning certain whole retinues to the task, which would probably have been the simplest method, men were drawn, apparently indiscriminately in terms of numbers, from a variety of different companies: Michael de la Pole, whose father died during the siege, provided two men-at-arms and five archers, and Thomas, Lord Camoys, a single man-at-arms, for example, while eight of the fifty Lancashire archers brought by Sir Richard Kyghley were also selected.33 A muster roll for the winter of 1415-16 reveals that the 300 men-at-arms included four barons, the lords Hastings, Grey, Bourchier and Clinton, and twenty-two knights (Sir Thomas Erpingham and Sir John Fastolf among them). This was an unusually high proportion of senior members of the nobility, reflecting the importance Henry attached to keeping the town, but also providing the earl of Dorset with a ready-made council of experienced and reliable soldiers and administrators in the event of an emergency. For some of them, this appointment proved to be a turning point in their careers. Fastolf, for example, saw the focus of his activity shift from England to France. Within a few months he had acquired the life grant of a manor and lordship near Harfleur that had belonged to Guy Malet, sire de Graville, and his profits of war would be so great that he was able to spend the next thirty years investing £460 annually (over $305,900 at today’s values) in the purchase of lands in England and France.34
The English garrison was to benefit from the protection of a small fleet that was ordered to patrol and guard the coastline close to Harfleur. A number of cannon were also installed in the town, together with eighteen gunners to operate them. Additionally, forty-two carpenters and twenty masons were to remain behind to restore the broken fortifications of the walls and towers. It was not until December that additional masons and tilers were to be recruited for the restoration of the houses and other buildings within the town. The cost would be phenomenal. Their wage bill, claimed by Harfleur’s new treasurer for the first five months alone, amounted to just over £4892 (more than $3,250,000 at today’s values), and that did not include exceptional sums such as the £800 paid to one Thomas Henlemsted, a “dyker” from Southwark, for removing a mound and making a ditch outside the town walls.35
Once the arrangements for the security of Harfleur had been completed, Henry had several choices before him. He could return to England with a short but successful campaign behind him having established a bridgehead for any future attempt to reconquer his heritage in Normandy. He could follow in his brother Clarence’s footsteps, and make a chevauchée, or armed raid, plundering and burning his way down through the south and west of France to his duchy of Aquitaine. He could extend his area of conquest by besieging another neighbouring town, such as Montivilliers, or Fécamp or Dieppe, which were both further up the coast towards Calais, or even Rouen, which would take him a major step further inland up the Seine.
There were good reasons why Henry adopted none of these alternatives. A five-week campaign, even one that resulted in the capture of a place as important as Harfleur, was not enough to justify the expense, effort and time he had put into the preparations. Nor would it do anything to advance his claim to the crown of France. If he were to force any greater concessions from the French, or, indeed, keep the support of his own people for further campaigns, then he needed to make a grander gesture.
A chevauchée to Bordeaux had its attractions: plenty of plunder on the journey for his men, a safe haven at the end, a chance to visit his duchy and perhaps carry out a campaign in the region. Indeed, Master Jean de Bordiu, in his letter of 3 September to the duchy, had stated categorically that it was the king’s “intention” to go to Bordeaux “before he returns to England.”36 On the other hand, this was written when the fall of Harfleur was expected imminently and before dysentery had made its appearance in his army. It was a month further into the campaigning season before Henry was ready to set off and Bordeaux was over 350 miles away—a very long way to travel for a depleted army that was not in the best of health. The lateness of the season, combined with his reduced numbers and the uncertain state of health of his men, made another siege out of the question, so the guns and siege engines were either put into Harfleur or shipped back to England.
Although rumours were rife all over Europe about the king’s intentions, Henry had already made up his mind what he was going to do. The great army he had assembled at Southampton was now reduced to a mere shadow of its former self. Excluding those in the garrison at Harfleur, he probably had only nine hundred men-at-arms and five thousand archers able to draw sword or fit to fight, as the chaplain put it. Even with this comparatively small number, he did not have enough shipping available to him at Harfleur to send them home directly, since he had dismissed most of his invasion fleet before the town capitulated.37 Nor did he have enough victuals to enable them all to remain indefinitely in the town.
Henry had arranged to meet his prisoners at Calais on 11 November and it was to Calais that he intended to go. He could have travelled there easily and safely by sea. Instead, he chose to follow in his great-grandfather’s footsteps, and march through what he claimed were “his” duchy of Normandy and “his” county of Ponthieu to “his” town of Calais. He even intended to cross the Somme at the same place, in the full knowledge that it was on a similar expedition, in 1346, that Edward III had won a famous victory over the French at Crécy. Although he would follow a route close to the coastline, it would inevitably bring him within easy striking distance of the French army at Rouen. He probably calculated that his diplomatic efforts of the previous year would ensure that neither John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, nor Jean, duke of Brittany, would move against him. In that case, the “French” army would actually be a much smaller and weaker Armagnac army. He had failed to draw the dauphin into battle at Harfleur or to give him trial by battle in person. Perhaps this deliberate act of provocation would finally rouse him to action.