CHAPTER THREE

A MOST CHRISTIAN KING

The day of Henry V’s coronation, Passion Sunday, 9 April 1413, would long be remembered for the savagery of the storms that ravaged the kingdom, “with driving snow which covered the country’s mountains, burying men and animals and houses, and, astonishingly, even inundating the valleys and fenlands, creating great danger and much loss of life.”1 For an age that saw the hand of God in everything, this was not a good omen, but Henry V was not a man to let superstition of this kind stand in his way. Precisely because he was the son of a usurper, he was determined to establish the legitimacy of his kingship beyond all doubt. To do this, he deliberately set out to be the perfect medieval monarch and the coronation was a key element in his strategy.

The ceremony itself was traditionally regarded as one of the holy sacraments of the Church. The most important elements were the anointing with unction, which conferred divine and temporal authority upon the new king, and the coronation oath. The act of anointing had taken on a deeper meaning since the “discovery” of a sacred oil which, according to legend, had been given to St Thomas Becket by the Virgin Mary, who promised him that a king anointed with it would recover Normandy and the lands of Aquitaine which had been lost by his ancestors, drive the infidel from the Holy Land and become the greatest of all kings. The oil had then remained hidden away until it was “rediscovered” in the Tower of London by Archbishop Thomas Arundel, just in time for Henry IV’s coronation. The whole story was clearly a piece of Lancastrian propaganda, but neither this, nor the fact that Henry IV failed to fulfil the prophecy, deterred his son (and grandson) from using the oil at his own coronation. The small print of the legend rather forlornly specified that Normandy and Aquitaine would be recovered “peacefully” and “without force.”2

The second strand to the coronation ceremony placed equal emphasis on the duties of kingship. This was the coronation oath, sworn at the altar, in which the king promised to uphold the laws, protect the Church and do right and equal justice to all. Significantly, Henry IV had chosen to rely on this aspect of the coronation to justify his usurpation, accusing Richard II of breaking his oath to provide the country with “good governance” and therefore committing perjury that rendered him unfit to be a king. The idea that kingship was a contract between king and people, rather than an inalienable right, was not new, but Henry IV had taken it a step further, and even so ardent a pro-Lancastrian as the chronicler John Capgrave had to admit that he had succeeded Richard II “not so much by right of descent as by the election of the people.” The danger of Henry relying so heavily on the duties instead of the rights of kingship was immediately apparent. He had made himself a hostage to fortune, and throughout his reign his own failure to live up to his promises would be used repeatedly as an excuse for every sort of opposition.3

It was typical of Henry V that he was able to take two essentially flawed concepts and turn them into a position of strength. In his own mind there was no question but that he was divinely appointed to rule and, like Richard II, he insisted on the dignity due not to himself, but to his office. Richard had required his courtiers to fall to their knees whenever he looked at them; Henry, according to at least one source, would not allow anyone to look him in the eye and deprived his French marshal of his office for having the temerity to do so. Although Henry’s personal preference seems to have been for a simple, almost austere way of life, he took great care to appear in the full panoply of state whenever he considered it necessary. As we shall see, he would receive the formal surrender of the “rebel” town of Harfleur, for instance, in a pavilion on top of a hill (so that he could look down on the defeated Frenchmen as they approached him), sitting on his throne under a canopy, or cloth of estate, made of gold and fine linen, with his triumphal helm bearing his crown held aloft on a lance by his side. Yet when he actually entered the town for the first time, he dismounted and walked barefoot to the parish church of St Martin, in the manner of a humble pilgrim or penitent, to give thanks to God “for his good fortune.”4

Henry’s ability to distinguish between himself as a man and as the incumbent and upholder of his office also impressed his contemporaries: unlike most modern commentators, they were able to see that his invasions of France were not made out of egotism or the desire for personal aggrandisement, but rather because he wanted, and considered it his duty, to recover the “just rights and inheritances” of the crown. On the other hand, both contemporaries and modern commentators alike have sometimes been confused by the expression of this dual personality: the affable, straight-talking and companionable soldier “Harry” could swiftly become the cold, ruthless and haughty autocrat if he felt that the line had been crossed and unacceptable liberties were being taken.5

Henry’s character and bearing deeply impressed even his enemies. The French ambassadors sent to negotiate with him some years later came away singing his praises. They described him as being tall and distinguished in person, with the proud bearing of a prince, but nevertheless treating everyone, regardless of rank, with the same kindly affability and courtesy. Unlike most men, he did not indulge in lengthy speeches or casual profanity. His answers were always short and to the point: “that is impossible” or “do that,” he would say, and if an oath were required, he would invoke the names of Christ and his saints. What they most admired was his ability to maintain the same calm, equable spirit in good times and bad. He took military setbacks in his stride, encouraging his soldiers by telling them that “as you know, the fortunes of war vary: but if you desire a good outcome, you must keep your courage intact.”6 It was a philosophy that would serve him, and his men, well on the Agincourt campaign.

The chroniclers’ stories of Henry’s wild, misspent youth and his dramatic conversion at his coronation into a sober, just and righteous king were mostly written long after his reign was over and, although they have acquired a veneer of historicity because they were taken up by Shakespeare, the only contemporary hint of even the slightest misconduct is a comment by his friend Richard Courtenay, bishop of Norwich, that he believed that Henry had been chaste since he had become king.7 What is important about these stories is not so much their truth, but that they represent in anecdotal form the spiritual experience of the coronation: the anointing transformed an ordinary man into a unique being, part man, part clergyman, who was chosen by God to be his representative on earth.

Despite his belief in his divinely constituted authority, Henry also placed unprecedented emphasis on his coronation oath as the central theme of his kingship. Unlike his father, he treated it “almost as a manifesto, a programme for government,”8 and he was committed to its implementation. He would uphold the laws, protect the Church and do right and equal justice to all. From the moment he succeeded to the throne, he made it clear that he was prepared to draw a line under the events of the previous two decades. Among the young nobles whom he selected for knighting on the eve of his coronation were at least five of the sons and heirs of men who had died in, or been executed for, rebellion against Henry IV. The most important of these was the twenty-one-year-old Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, who had been recognised by Richard II as his heir and, as a child, had twice been the focus of rebel attempts to depose Henry IV in his favour. He had spent most of his childhood in captivity but from 1409 he had lived in the less formal prison of the future Henry V’s own household, where, although he was unable to come and go as he pleased, he was in every other respect treated like any aristocratic member of the royal court. Henry now trusted him sufficiently not only to free and knight him but also to restore all his lands and allow Mortimer to take his place in the first parliament of the new reign. Although two years later he would be involved on the fringes of the only aristocratic plot against Henry V, his sense of personal obligation was such that he revealed it to the king and remained both loyal and active in royal service for the rest of his life.9

Henry’s generosity towards another potential rival, the twenty-three-year-old John Mowbray, also paid dividends. The son of the man whose bitter personal quarrel with Henry’s own father had led to their joint banishment by Richard II, and younger brother of Thomas Mowbray, whom Henry IV had executed for treason in 1405, he had not been allowed to inherit his lands until a fortnight before Henry IV’s death. On his accession, Henry V immediately restored to him the family’s hereditary title of earl marshal. This was not an empty honour and the timing of its reinstatement was sensitively done because it enabled Mowbray to play his important traditional role at the coronation, demonstrating publicly that the feud which had plagued both their houses was at an end. Negotiations for similar restorations of titles and lands were also begun for Henry Percy, nineteen-year-old son of “Hotspur” and grandson of the earl of Northumberland, both of whom had died in rebellion against Henry IV, and for the eighteen-year-old John Holland, son of the earl of Huntingdon executed by Henry IV in 1400.10

In his choice of councillors and officers of state the new king also displayed both wisdom and tact, building round him a team upon whom the success of the Agincourt expedition would depend. He was always prepared to promote talent wherever he found it, keeping on those who had served his father well, whether they were career civil servants, such as John Wakering, the keeper of the chancery rolls, whom he would promote to the bishopric of Norwich in 1416, or aristocrats, like Ralph Neville, earl of Westmorland, who was confirmed in his office as warden of the west marches of Scotland.

On the other hand, key posts were also given to those who had been part of his inner circle as prince of Wales. His half-uncle and long-term ally Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, was appointed chancellor of England and keeper of the Great Seal on the first day of the new reign, ousting the sixty-year-old Archbishop Arundel. This combined office made Beaufort the most powerful government minister in the kingdom. As chancellor he controlled the office which issued all the writs in the king’s name by which government business was carried out. The Great Seal, which was attached to these orders, was instantly recognisable (even to the illiterate) as the official seal of England whose authority outranked that of any other individual or department of state. Thomas, earl of Arundel (the archbishop’s nephew), replaced Sir John Pelham as treasurer of England and was also appointed to maintain the country’s first line of defence from invasion as warden of the Cinque Ports and constable of Dover. Richard Beauchamp, the young earl of Warwick, who had already demonstrated outstanding negotiating skills as well as military ones, was immediately employed on several sensitive diplomatic missions and, at the beginning of 1414, would be entrusted with the strategically important post of captain of Calais.11

Almost as important as this choice of advisors was Henry’s refusal to promote those who might have expected office, honour and profit from the new king. Henry Beaufort’s financial skills, powers of oratory and influence in the House of Commons made him an exemplary chancellor, but the post was not enough to satisfy his limitless ambition. When Archbishop Arundel died on 19 February 1414, Beaufort expected to be rewarded with the see of Canterbury. Instead, Henry appointed a man who was both a relative newcomer and, compared to the aristocratic Arundel and Beaufort, an outsider. Henry Chichele was the sort of clergyman whom the new king liked to have around him. A Londoner, whose brothers were eminent aldermen in the City, he was an Oxford graduate and an expert in civil law who had served on an embassy to France, as king’s proctor in Rome and as a delegate to the general council of the Church at Pisa. Since 1408 he had been bishop of St David’s in Wales and in 1410-11 he had served on the royal council when it was headed by Henry as prince of Wales. Significantly, he had not attended after Henry’s removal, indicating that he was already identified as one of the prince’s men.

Fifty-two years of age when he was appointed to Canterbury, Chichele had a wealth of experience as an administrator and a diplomat, but in two important aspects he was the antithesis of the king’s half-uncle. First, he was solid, dependable and tactful, a servant of the Church and king, rather than of his own personal ambition. Second, unlike the flamboyant and worldly Beaufort, he was genuinely pious, with a touch of that severe self-discipline and restraint which Henry shared and admired in others. Henry’s own piety would not allow him to appoint as leader of the Church in England a man who did not have the spiritual interests of that Church at heart. Chichele amply repaid Henry’s trust by the quiet efficiency with which he led both diplomatic embassies and Church affairs. His appointment also served as a warning shot across the bows that the new king would not allow anyone, however high his rank or long his service, to presume upon his favour. It was a lesson Beaufort should have learnt in 1414 but would have to be taught more harshly a few years later.12

The most significant person to be excluded from Henry V’s inner circles and favour was his brother Thomas, duke of Clarence. Despite the fact that for the first eight years of Henry’s reign Clarence was next in line to the throne, he was never appointed regent, never received a major independent military command and was never given a significant position of trust. Although he set off for home as soon as news of Henry IV’s death reached Aquitaine, he did not arrive in time for his brother’s coronation. He was thus accidentally deprived of the opportunity to carry out his duties as steward and constable of England at the ceremony. And, shortly after his return, he was deliberately deprived of his office as king’s lieutenant in Aquitaine, which was given to his half-uncle Thomas Beaufort, earl of Dorset, who had remained in the duchy with Edward, duke of York. Not long afterwards, he lost the captaincy of Calais to the earl of Warwick, though he remained captain of the less important adjacent territory of Guînes.13

Although Henry carefully avoided humiliating Clarence by compensating him for the loss of his offices with a handsome pension of two thousand marks, the new king’s determination to foster a spirit of reconciliation does not seem to have genuinely embraced his brother. Was Henry being vindictive? Was Clarence being punished, even persecuted, for having been his father’s favourite? His treatment is in marked contrast to that meted out to his younger brothers. John, who was twenty-four at Henry V’s accession, was allowed to remain in office as warden of the east marches of Scotland and twenty-two-year-old Humphrey was appointed chamberlain of England. They each received advancement at Henry’s hands too: John was created duke of Bedford and Humphrey duke of Gloucester on 16 May 1414. More significantly, both men would serve as regents in England while Henry was away fighting in France.14

Hot-headed, quarrelsome and lacking in judgement, Clarence had never made any secret of his support for the Armagnacs. Indeed, it was typical of the man that in 1412, not content with just leading a military expedition to their assistance, he had also taken the step of forming an intimate personal bond with their leader. Reserving only his allegiance to the king of England (who was then his father, not his brother), Clarence had sworn a formal oath to become the brother-in-arms of Charles d’Orléans, promising to “serve him, aid him, counsel him, and protect his honour and well-being in all ways and to the best of his powers.”15 The kindest interpretation of this action is that it was indiscreet, but Clarence had compromised himself further during the winter of 1412-13 by forming military alliances in Aquitaine with Bernard, count of Armagnac, and Charles d’Albret.

Clarence’s commitment to the Armagnacs raised suspicions that he was trying to carve out a principality of his own. Indeed, this may have been his father’s intention when he appointed Clarence his lieutenant in Aquitaine in the first place, for there was, as we have seen, a precedent in Richard II’s plans to hive the duchy off from the crown and bestow it on John of Gaunt. And if Henry gave up his own title of duke of Aquitaine to his brother when he became king, it would resolve the problem of homage once and for all, since there could be no objection to Clarence and his heirs doing homage to the king of France. A proposal of this nature might also be traded for a recognition of increased rights and expanded boundaries in Aquitaine, which had always been the principal aim of Henry IV’s foreign policy. But Henry V had no intention of relinquishing his duchy to anyone, since to do so would undermine his own claim to the rest of his “just rights and inheritances” in France.16

One of Henry V’s first acts as king was to offer the olive branch in the form of a general pardon for all treasons, rebellions and felonies committed in his father’s reign to anyone who cared to seek it. “Whereas we are mindful of the many great misfortunes which have arisen out of faction . . . ,” he proclaimed, “we have firmly resolved, since it would be pleasing to God and most conducive to the preservation of good order, that as God’s pardon has been freely bestowed on us, we should allow all the subjects of our kingdom . . . who so desire, to drink from the cup of our mercy.” Suing for a pardon did not necessarily imply guilt. It is difficult to believe that the elderly bishop of Hereford, a former royal confessor, really needed his pardon “for all treasons, murders, rapes, rebellions, insurrections, felonies, conspiracies, trespasses, offences, negligencies, extortions, misprisions, ignorances, contempts, concealments and deceptions committed by him, except murders after 19 November.” Nevertheless, a pardon was a useful insurance policy in uncertain times and the response—some 750 individual pardons were issued before the end of the year—suggests that this conciliatory gesture was welcomed in many quarters.17

Within a few days of his accession, Henry dispatched Thomas, earl of Arundel, to Wales with special powers to receive former rebels into the king’s grace and to grant them pardons at his discretion. The results were spectacular. Six hundred inhabitants of Merionethshire appeared before Arundel admitting that they deserved death as traitors but asking for mercy; when he granted them a communal pardon on Henry’s behalf, they fell on their knees and thanked God for the magnanimity of their king. More than fifty condemned rebels from Kidwelly were also spared death, fined and had their lands restored. This granting of pardons and restoration of lands to former rebels was not simply an act of royal mercy and charity. It was also highly profitable. In just two years Henry raised more than five thousand pounds—well over four million dollars in today’s currency—from fines collected from his Welsh lands.18

While it might be tempting to see fund-raising as the real reason for the whole exercise, it was nevertheless true that the pardons and restorations allowed those Welshmen who had been tempted to rebel to put the past behind them and make a clean start. The success of this policy was demonstrated by the fact that, although Owain Glyn Dw?246-136?r was still at large in the mountains (and never would be captured), at no time was he ever able to attract enough malcontents to raise the standard of revolt again. Significantly, too, there was a genuine attempt to pursue and punish corrupt royal officials who had abused their powers in the principality. Thomas Barneby, the chamberlain of north Wales, at first successfully evaded indictment by bribery, but Henry’s commissioners did not give up and a few months later he had to face thirty charges of extortion and embezzlement and was removed from office. Another royal official, Sir John Scudamore, the steward of Kidwelly, was similarly deprived of his post, even though it had been granted to him for life.19 Such actions did much to redress the balance: the king might penalise those who had rebelled against his authority, but he was also prepared to punish those who had abused it. Henry was demonstrably carrying out his oath to do right and equal justice for all in Wales. It was a policy that clearly won him friends in the principality, judging by the huge numbers of Welshmen who signed up for the Agincourt campaign.

The same was true of the rest of his kingdom. Violence against persons and property, riots and disorder, were endemic in medieval England.20 The principal reason for this was not simply that society was naturally more criminal, but rather an inability to obtain justice, which encouraged those who perceived themselves to be victims to seek redress or revenge themselves. Since there was neither a police force nor a public prosecution service to investigate crimes or indict criminals, the judicial process relied almost entirely on local men (and they were nearly always men) who served as jurors, sheriffs or justices of the peace. Inevitably, these were also the people most vulnerable to bribery, corruption and intimidation because they were dependent for their offices on the goodwill, power and patronage of the magnates and aristocrats, the super-rich whose landholdings and influence crossed county boundaries and ultimately led to the fount of all good things, the royal court and the king himself.

In Shropshire, where the most powerful magnate was Thomas, earl of Arundel, one of Henry V’s closest friends, a small group of his retainers had acquired a stranglehold on local administration. Their crimes ranged from the obvious—peculation, extortion, terrorising and destroying the countryside at the head of armed bands of men—to the ingeniously devious, such as securing the appointment of their opponents to the unpopular post of tax-collectors. Henry IV had not dared to intervene for fear of offending Arundel, whose support was essential in crushing the Welsh revolt, but Henry V had no such qualms. He appointed a special commission of central court justices from the king’s bench at Westminster with extraordinary powers to suppress the disorder in Shropshire. This was a bold move (commissions of this type had roused such violent popular opposition under Richard II that Henry IV had been afraid to use them and had never allowed the king’s bench to leave Westminster), but it proved its worth immediately. Over the course of the summer of 1414, almost eighteen hundred indictments were received and proceedings were begun against sixteen hundred individuals.21 The seven leading culprits were prosecuted, found guilty and forced to give bonds for the enormous sum of £200 each (the equivalent of $133,300 today) to keep the peace in future. Arundel himself was obliged to give a further bond of £3000 ($2,012,500 today) as a pledge for their good behaviour. This alone was a powerful demonstration that Arundel’s friendship with the king did not allow him, or his retainers, to be above the law.

In less sure hands, such exemplary punishment meted out to a powerful aristocrat and his supporters would probably have provoked a hostile reaction, possibly even armed revolt. The success of Henry’s policy is therefore all the more remarkable, particularly as the experience in Shropshire was repeated throughout the rest of the country. The knights and esquires of the shires, who should have been the natural upholders of local justice, were specifically targeted by Henry’s special courts and made to pay the price for deviating from that role. Critically, however, it was not such a high price that it drove them into opposition. Even Arundel’s notorious band of seven was given a second chance. They all received pardons and, more importantly, redeemed themselves by active military service: six of them served in Arundel’s retinue on the Agincourt campaign; the seventh remained at home as a captain entrusted with the guardianship of the Welsh marches.22 Many of their own servants, who had also been indicted for the same offences, played a vital role as archers at Agincourt.

Henry was also prepared to intervene personally to resolve disputes before they spiralled out of control. A revealing anecdote in an English chronicle proves that it was a far more terrifying experience to have to answer to the king in person than to his courts. Two feuding knights from Yorkshire and Lancashire were ordered before the king when he was just sitting down to dinner. Whose men are you? he asked them. Yours, they replied. And whose men had they raised to fight in their quarrel? Yours, they replied again. “& what authority or comaundement had ye, to raise up my men or my peeple, to fyght & slay eache othyr for your quarel?” Henry demanded, adding that “in this ye are worthy to die.” Unable to answer, the two knights humbly begged his pardon. Henry then swore “by the feith that he owed to God and to Seint George” that if they could not resolve their quarrel before he had finished his dish of oysters, “they should be hanged both two.” Faced with such a choice, the knights were immediately persuaded to settle their differences, but they were not yet off the hook. The king swore his favourite oath again and told them that if they, or any other lord within or without his realm “whatsomeever they were,” ever caused any insurrection or death of his subjects again, “they should die, accordyng to the lawe.”23 By sheer force of personality, Henry succeeded in establishing and keeping the king’s peace to a degree that was unprecedented, especially for a monarch who spent much of his reign absent from his kingdom. In doing so, he earned himself a reputation that extended far beyond the shores of England and even eclipsed his military successes in contemporary eyes. “He was a prince of justice, not only in himself, for the sake of example, but also towards others, according to equity and right,” wrote the Burgundian chronicler, Georges Chastellain; “he upheld no one through favour, nor did he allow wrong to go unpunished out of kinship.”24

Given Henry’s determination to promote reconciliation and restore peace and order to the country, it is ironic that the first serious challenge to his authority came not from one of his father’s enemies but from a trusted member of his own household. Sir John Oldcastle was a veteran of the Welsh wars who had served as a Member of Parliament for, and sheriff of, his home county of Herefordshire. It is a measure of Henry’s confidence in him that in 1411 Oldcastle had been chosen as one of the leaders of Arundel’s expedition to France to aid the Burgundians.25 Like many of the wealthy, literate and intelligent knights attached to the royal court under Richard II and Henry IV, Oldcastle had strong Lollard sympathies, and it was these that brought him into trouble. Lollardy was a precursor of the Protestant faith. Its roots lay in anticlericalism—anger and frustration at the wealth and privileges enjoyed by the Church and the inadequacy and corruption of its ministers—which had been strengthened by the growth in literacy among the gentry and urban middle classes. Knights, esquires, merchants, tradesmen and their wives who were capable of reading their own Bibles and, increasingly, owned or had access to a copy in English, were inclined to be more critical of the Church’s failure to measure up to the apostolic standards of the New Testament. More importantly, instead of simply looking to reform the Church, they were also starting to develop an alternative theology that made the Bible the sole authority for the Christian faith, rather than the Church and its hierarchy. They began to question, and even to deny, the central teachings of the Church. The most extreme among them believed that the Church had no valid role to play as an intermediary between the individual and God. They therefore rejected the seven sacraments performed by priests (baptism, confession, eucharist, confirmation, marriage, ordination and extreme unction) and anything which relied on the intercession of saints, such as praying to them, venerating their images or even going on pilgrimage. In the forthright words of Hawisia Mone, a convicted Lollard in the diocese of Norwich, going on pilgrimage served no purpose except to enrich priests “that be too riche and to make gay tapsters and proude ostelers.” On the evidence of his Canterbury Tales, one feels that Chaucer might not have entirely disagreed with this statement.26

The problem with identifying Lollardy as heresy was that it included many shades of opinion, not all of which fell outside the pale of orthodoxy. Even the new king’s loyalty to the Church could not be taken for granted. His grandfather, John of Gaunt, had been an early patron of John Wycliffe, the Oxford theologian who is regarded as the father of English Lollardy, and employed him to write tracts attacking papal supremacy and clerical immunity from taxation. The Lollards themselves believed that they had enjoyed the support of Henry IV, and Thomas, duke of Clarence, owned a copy of the Wycliffite Bible.27

Oldcastle’s heretical views were not in doubt. He was the “principal receiver, patron, protector, and defender” of Lollardy in England and was in touch with similar movements abroad: he had even offered the military support of his own followers to King Wenceslaus, who was carrying out a programme of seizure of Church lands in Bohemia.28 Tried and convicted of heresy, Oldcastle refused to renounce his faith and was sentenced to be burnt at the stake. At the king’s express request, a stay of execution was granted so that Henry could try to persuade his friend to submit, but before the forty days’ grace had elapsed, Oldcastle escaped from the Tower of London.29

It was at this point that what should have been a purely religious affair became a political one. Instead of going into hiding or fleeing abroad, Oldcastle decided to stage a coup d’état.30 The plot was to capture the king and his brothers by disguising himself and a group of his fellow conspirators as mummers for the annual Twelfth Night celebrations at Eltham Palace in January 1414. At the same time, Lollards from all over the country were to gather in St Giles’s Field, just outside the city gates, ready to take London by force. These plans were foiled by Henry’s spies, who discovered the plot and forewarned the king. (They, and two informers, were swiftly and generously rewarded by the king.)31 The court removed from Eltham and as the little bands of Lollards, armed with swords and bows, drifted into St Giles’s Field from as far away as Leicestershire and Derby, they were ambushed and overpowered. Oldcastle’s predictions that one hundred thousand men would rally to his cause were hopelessly exaggerated. Some seventy or eighty were captured, of whom forty-five were promptly executed as traitors; significantly, only seven were burnt as heretics.

It rapidly became apparent that Oldcastle’s revolt had little popular support, and having reacted swiftly and harshly to the initial threat Henry was now prepared to be merciful to the individuals involved. On 28 March 1414 he issued a general pardon to all rebels who submitted before Midsummer and in the following December he extended this to include those still in prison and even to Oldcastle himself, who had escaped capture and gone into hiding.32

Oldcastle’s revolt had precisely the opposite effect to the one that he had intended. Lollardy did not become a national state-endorsed religion, nor could it be any longer regarded as purely a Church affair that was irrelevant to the secular authorities. Instead, it had now become synonymous with treason and rebellion. One of the first acts passed by the next parliament which met at Leicester in 1414, just after the revolt, required all royal officials, from the chancellor right down to the king’s bailiffs, to investigate heresy and assist the ecclesiastical courts in bringing Lollards to justice. This resulted in a significant increase in heresy trials, convictions and burnings at the stake. Lollardy did not die out altogether, but it was disgraced, discredited and driven deeper underground.33

The crushing of Oldcastle’s revolt marked the victory of orthodoxy over heterodoxy. It was also a personal triumph for Henry V. He had survived an attempted coup by acting decisively, and in the process he had placed the Church under an obligation to himself which he did not hesitate to call in. The Agincourt campaign would be financed from the coffers of the English clergy and supported by the Church’s prayers, blessings and propaganda. The new king had demonstrably fulfilled his coronation oath to defend the Church and would continue to do so. Even Thomas Arundel, the archbishop of Canterbury, was forced to admit (perhaps through gritted teeth) that Henry V was “the most Christian king in Christ, our most noble king, the zealous supporter of the laws of Christ.”34 It was an accolade that would be repeatedly bestowed by many contemporaries and it was a significant one: it was yet another title that Henry V had taken from the king of France.35

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