CHAPTER EIGHT

THE ARMY GATHERS

On 16 June 1415 Henry V rode out of London on his way to Southampton, pausing only to attend services and make offerings at St Paul’s and Southwark. He was accompanied by four members of the extended royal family, Edward, duke of York, Thomas Beaufort, earl of Dorset, Sir John Cornewaille and Sir John Holland, and the earls of Arundel, March and Oxford. The mayor, aldermen and some 340 citizens of London turned out to honour their king by riding some ten miles with him as far as Kingston, where they took their leave and wished him Godspeed on his voyage. According to his instructions, they then returned to the city, to remain there until his return from France.¹

The very next day, a French embassy, led by a senior diplomat, Guillaume Boisratier, archbishop of Bourges, landed at Dover. Not realising that Henry had already left London, the ambassadors made their way to the city for an interview with the king. By the time Henry learnt of their arrival he was already at Winchester, some twelve or thirteen miles north of Southampton, where he had taken up residence in Wolvesey Castle. It was here that he summoned the Frenchmen to his presence for what he knew, but they did not, would be the final move in the diplomatic game.

Henry received them graciously but in his most regal manner: bare-headed, but dressed entirely in cloth of gold, and surrounded by members of his great council, including his three brothers. Once more the French declared their desire for a “true, complete and perfect peace” between the two realms and repeated their offer of an enlarged Aquitaine, marriage with Catherine of France and a dowry of eight hundred thousand francs, if only Henry would disband the army which, they knew, he was assembling at Southampton. After some days of inconsequential and half-hearted bargaining, the ambassadors were again summoned to the king’s presence to hear his final answer from the mouth of his chancellor, Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester. The king and his great council, Beaufort declared, had decided that if the French did not give him Catherine and the duchies of Aquitaine, Normandy, Anjou and Touraine, together with the counties of Poitou, Maine and Ponthieu, “and all the other places which once belonged to his predecessors by right of inheritance, he would not put off his voyage . . . but with all his power he would destroy the realm and the king of France.” At the conclusion of Beaufort’s speech, Henry himself added that, with God’s permission, he would indeed do as the bishop had said, “and this he promised the ambassadors, on the word of a king.”

Realising that nothing they could say or do would deflect Henry from his purpose, the archbishop of Bourges permitted himself one last defiant speech, protesting that the French had made their generous offers, not through fear of the English, but for love of peace and to avoid the spilling of Christian blood. The king of France would drive the English from his realm and all his dominions. “You will either be taken prisoner there,” he warned Henry, “or you will die there.”²

Faced with the failure of their mission, there was nothing left for the French ambassadors to do but to return to Paris, where they reported Henry’s intransigence and what they had been able to learn about the English preparations for war. Yet, even now, it seems that the French continued to underestimate the strength and scope of Henry’s purpose. In this it appears that they were deliberately misled by the English. Richard Courtenay, bishop of Norwich, who was a close friend of the king and had been intimately involved in the negotiations, confided in Master Jean Fusoris, a canon of Notre Dame attached to the embassy, that he believed the marriage might have been arranged if only the ambassadors had come earlier, and declared that he had not yet given up all hope of a treaty. As late as August 1415 (after Henry had sailed for France), the Venetians were still getting reports that a settlement and peace were possible. The general expectation on the French side appears to have been that even if the invasion did go ahead, it would be a brief raid, like that of 1412, which would achieve nothing to justify its expense.³

The role that Fusoris played in the delegation was at best questionable and at worst treasonable. In all probability he was an English spy. Although a clergyman, he was better known to his contemporaries as an astrologer and maker of astrological instruments. He had pestered his way into being taken on the embassy by claiming that he was owed large sums by the bishop, whom he had met on the latter’s two diplomatic missions to Paris in the autumn of 1414 and spring of 1415. Courtenay had then cultivated Fusoris, telling him that he shared his interest in astrology and buying books and instruments from him. He had also consulted him professionally, persuading Fusoris to use his almanacs and astrolabes to divine the omens for a marriage between Henry and Catherine and the likely success of his current embassy. Courtenay had also expressed concern about Henry V’s long-term health and sought a horoscope reading, based on the king’s nativity, to predict how long he would live.⁴

Bizarre though it seems to find a bishop consulting an astrologer, this was by no means unusual in France. In England, astrology as a means of predicting the future was regarded as both sorcery and the false prophecy condemned in the Bible. It had been further brought into disrepute by its association with Richard II, whose unusually continental tastes had included one for divination; predictions of his second coming had persuaded Henry IV to enact legislation against prophecy in 1402 and 1406. Charles V of France, on the other hand, had been a devotee of the arts of astrology and geomancy (an art similar to reading tea-leaves, but using a handful of earth), collecting an impressive library on all the occult sciences. His court astrologer was a former lecturer in astrology at the university of Bologna, Tommaso da Pizzano (now more familiar as the father of Christine de Pizan). Da Pizzano famously claimed that he had used his arts to drive the English out of France in the 1370s. He had done this by having five hollow human figures made out of lead under a propitious constellation, labelling each one with the name and astrological character of the king of England and his four captains, then filling them with earth taken from the middle and the four corners of France respectively. At the right astrological moment, he had buried each one, face downwards and with its hands positioned behind its back, in the place from which the earth had been taken, reciting incantations for the annihilation of the persons they represented and the expulsion of the English from France as he did so. The result was sensational, if not instantaneous, for “within a few months all the said companies had fled from the realm.”⁵

Fusoris, probably unaware of the difference in attitude between the two countries, may have hoped to gain a post as court astrologer, or, at the very least, to sell some of his books and instruments to the English king. In either case, he was an easy target for a wily diplomat like Courtenay, who persuaded him that Henry V had a great interest in astrology and that he wished to meet him. Having strung Fusoris along for the entire length of the negotiations at Winchester—during which time the astrologer roused the suspicions of the official French envoys by failing to turn up for meals and by his frequent meetings and conversations with Englishmen—Courtenay finally introduced him to the king after mass, making a pointed speech about how the Frenchman, “thinking there would be a treaty of peace,” had brought Henry gifts of astrolabes, charts and almanacs. If Fusoris had expected a fulsome welcome and expressions of gratitude or interest, he did not get them. Henry’s response was a typically laconic “Thank you, Master John” in Latin, followed by a slightly less formal “many thanks” in French. He even refused to accept one of the treatises or a little book of astrological puzzles.⁶

In fact, Henry’s interest in astrology was either minimal or, more likely, feigned as a cover for a public meeting with a man whose occupation had given him privileged access to and contacts within French royal circles, making him a potentially useful spy. At least two of the other envoys would testify at Fusoris’s trial for treason that he had also had another meeting with the king, during which he was closeted away with him for a two full hours, but this Fusoris vigorously denied. Nevertheless, before he left, he paid yet another visit to Courtenay and was given £33 6s 8d, money that, he claimed, was due to him as payment for the bishop’s outstanding debt, but which may have been for services rendered. Fusoris’s considered opinion of Henry—which may be unreliable, as it was given in the courtroom during his trial—was that the king had the fine manner of a lord and great stateliness, but that he thought him more suited to the Church than to war. To his mind, Clarence cut an altogether more warlike figure.⁷

Henry, however, was about to reveal his martial side. Having nothing further to discuss with the French ambassadors, he abandoned them at Winchester and on the evening of 6 July 1415 rode off to join his army, which was now mustering around Southampton. He set up his headquarters at Portchester Castle, whose great keep and curtain walls, interspersed at regular intervals with round watch towers, had benefited from his recent modernisation programme. Standing on a headland in the natural harbour of Portsmouth Bay, directly opposite the sea entrance, the castle was conveniently placed for Henry to make regular forays to review the gathering troops and to keep an eye on the progress of the fleet building up in Southampton Water and the Solent. When the time came, it would also prove to be his ideal point of embarkation: from Portchester he could sail directly to the head of the fleet and lead it out to sea.

The final arrangements for the campaign were now in place. Henry’s twenty-six-year-old younger brother, John, duke of Bedford, had been appointed to act, with the assistance of a small council, headed by the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops of Winchester and Durham, and the earl of Westmorland, as king’s lieutenant for England, Wales and Ireland during Henry’s absence. Sir John Tiptoft, a long-standing Lancastrian retainer and highly experienced royal and parliamentary administrator, had likewise been appointed seneschal of Aquitaine and departed with a substantial army for the duchy in June.⁸

Measures had also been taken for the defence of the kingdom in the absence of not just the king but so many of the fighting men upon whom it normally relied. Reinforcements had been sent to safeguard the Scottish, Welsh and Calais marches, and to join the fleet guarding the coast. As a matter of principle, those living in areas that were most likely to be attacked, such as the northernmost counties, had not been recruited for the campaign and had actually been ordered to remain at their posts. Robert Twyford, who attempted to join the king’s own retinue, had his indentures cancelled because “it pleased [the king] that he should remain in the company of lord Grey, Warden of the East March of Scotland, for the reinforcement of the said marches.” All military leave in Calais was cancelled for the duration of the king’s expedition.⁹

Commissions had also been appointed in every county to identify each man capable of fighting and ensure that he was properly armed and equipped according to his status. As we have seen, all men aged between sixteen and sixty, irrespective of rank, were required by law to practise at the archery butts every Sunday and Holy Day after mass; those with lands or rents worth between £2 and £5 had also to provide themselves with a bow, arrows, sword and dagger, so that they were ready to serve whenever called upon to do so. Though many of these men were undoubtedly recruited into the king’s army, those too young, old or incapacitated in some way would remain behind as the medieval equivalent of the Home Guard.¹⁰

It is a measure of the exceptional strain placed on the resources of manpower within the realm by the demands of the Agincourt campaign that this was not considered sufficient. It was to the Church that, once again, Henry looked to make up his shortfall. Contemporary legal opinion was divided many ways on the subject, but it was generally accepted that clergymen could defend themselves if they were attacked, and it was on this principle that commissions of the clergy for the defence of the realm could be justified. Henry therefore addressed a writ to the archbishops of Canterbury and York, and to all the bishops individually, demanding a muster of the clergy in every diocese with all possible haste. The array was to include anyone capable of bearing arms, irrespective of whether they were secular clergy, such as parish priests, or members of religious orders living in enclosed monastic houses. Even those who were officially exempt from such demands were to be called up and, for once, the liberties of the Church were not to be respected. Every single cleric was to be well and suitably armed, according to his status and his capabilities, and ready to resist “the malice, impudence and harassment of our enemies.” Perhaps to sweeten the pill, the preamble to the writ hinted that the Church’s own enemies, Lollards and heretics, rather than marauding Scots or Frenchmen, were the object of this extraordinary measure: it declared that the king was acting “for the defence of the realm and of our Mother Church of England and of the Catholic Faith.”¹¹ The records for the eleven dioceses which still exist show that, between them, they mustered over 12,000 clergymen; the great diocese of Lincoln found 4500 suitable men in total, of whom 4000 were arrayed as archers, while even the comparatively tiny see of Bath and Wells produced sixty men-at-arms, 830 archers and ten mounted archers.¹² When the lost figures for the remaining eight dioceses are added to these, the Church must have fielded an extraordinary shadow army of tonsured and habit-clad monks, canons, friars, priests and chaplains, drawn from the sanctuary of monastery, cathedral and university cloister, parish churches and chantry chapels. What is more, it was a militia that substantially outnumbered the more conventional armed forces gathering in Southampton.

That army now numbered just over 12,000 fighting men drawn from almost every corner of the kingdom, including Aquitaine. (There were no Irish or Scottish contingents, despite the colourful captains Macmorris and Jamy, of Shakespearean fame.) This represented a tremendous effort on the part of the individual retinue leaders who, like the king himself, found the responsibility of raising, equipping and feeding their companies a severe financial strain. The accounts of the young John Mowbray, for whom this was his first official outing in his military capacity as earl marshal, reveal that he spent more than £2000 (almost $1.6 million today) on his contribution to the war effort, even though he only received £1450 back from the king in wages for himself and his men.¹³

The earl had been one of the first to sign up for the campaign, indenting with the king on 29 April. By 1 July, when his accountants paid the quarter’s wages to those who had signed indentures to serve with him, he had fifty-five men-at-arms, only two of whom were knights, and 147 archers. All of them were paid their wages for the whole of the first quarter (ninety-one days) in full and at the rate for going to France, even though the earl himself, in common with the rest of those who indented to serve the king directly, had only received half of the pay for the same period. His second payment was only due when he mustered his troops before the king’s reviewers (on 1 July, which is why he had arranged to pay his men on that day), but the muster was postponed for a fortnight and the earl was left to bankroll the shortfall in the meantime.¹⁴

The earl’s accounts reveal that he had to build up this large retinue out of very small units. The largest sub-retinue was raised by an esquire Perceval Lynlay, who brought five men-at-arms with him and a company of fifteen archers. Although two knights and five other esquires also produced comparatively large contingents, thirty esquires signed up as individual men-at-arms, each one bringing either two or three archers with him, and forty of the archers were also recruited on an individual basis. From their names, which sometimes occur elsewhere in the accounts in a professional capacity, one can guess that many of this last group were members of the earl’s household: William Coke (the cook), Nicholas Armourer, William Sadelyler, John Foteman, John Fysshelake. One archer is even specifically referred to as a tentmaker.¹⁵

The accounts also include wages paid at military rates to a small group who were almost certainly non-combatants and therefore could not count towards the numbers of fighting men whom the earl had contracted to supply. The group included the earl’s two heralds (each of whom had to provide himself with an archer), three minstrels and his trumpeter, “Thomas Trumpet,” the last of whom was paid a flat rate of £10 a year. This raises the unanswerable question of just how many non-combatants accompanied the English army to France. The chancery rolls, which list those to whom royal letters of attorney and protection were granted for the campaign, record the professions of a small proportion of the applicants. These include men who were obviously not intended to fight: Thomas Baudewyn, rector of Swaby in Lincolnshire, who accompanied the duke of Clarence; John Hugge, a notary in the retinue of the Flemish knight Hertonk von Clux; and John Cook, one of the king’s chaplains. Others may have been there in a purely professional capacity. The particular skills of William Merssh, the king’s smith from the Tower of London, or John Persshall of London, a “bladesmith” in the retinue of Nicholas Merbury, were more valuable than a capacity to fight. Some of the more important grocers, fishmongers and merchants, many of whom were London citizens, may have been involved purely as suppliers to the various retinues. But what are we to make of the two tailors, the Norwich baker, the Coventry woolman, the Petworth butcher, the London drover and William Belle, a taverner in the duke of Clarence’s retinue, the last of whose letters of protection were revoked in November “because he delays in London”?¹⁶Were they there to practise their trades or as soldiers? The latter would seem the most likely answer, although the two were not necessarily incompatible. Only one of the approximately five hundred men who received letters of protection or attorney described his occupation as “archer” and many of those paid as archers by the earl marshal were members of his household. An army of this size would inevitably have to draw heavily on the civilian population to supplement the ranks of professional soldiers.¹⁷

Just like the new king, the earl marshal found himself pouring considerable sums into the equipping of his retinue, purchasing bows, arrows, bow-strings and, perhaps surprisingly, even crossbow supplies, from a number of different fletchers and tradesmen. All were carefully boxed up for transportation in specially purchased chests, which were then covered with waxed cloths to protect them from water damage.¹⁸ Though it seems to have been expected that retinue leaders like the earl would provide at least some military equipment for their archers, there was no similar obligation towards the men-at-arms. It was taken for granted that they would provide for themselves entirely, the bare minimum being a full suit of plate armour, weaponry and the four horses allowed by the terms of the indentures. The quality of all these might differ markedly according to income, but it was important to have the best affordable, since the owner’s life might depend on it. Valuable weapons, particularly swords and daggers, might be passed from father to son or bequeathed to favoured retainers because their design did not change significantly and they could be refurbished. Lances were expendable, like arrows, but more adaptable. The wooden shafts needed to be long enough for use on horseback, but could also be cut down at short notice: the French men-at-arms at Agincourt would be ordered to shorten their lances when the decision was taken to fight on foot.¹⁹ Perhaps the most significant new weapon in the armoury of the man-at-arms was the axe, or pollaxe, which had been developed in the late fourteenth century in response to the introduction of plate armour. Like the mace, which it replaced, the axe was designed with a hammer head to crush an opponent’s armour with a swinging blow, but it also had a deadly spiked point that could be used in a stabbing action to puncture plate armour and drive between its vulnerable joints.²⁰

Not every man-at-arms could afford to equip himself with the latest armour, but the earl marshal was determined to cut a fine figure for his first campaign. In June and July he managed to spend more than £70 (the equivalent of almost $48,300 today) on armour alone. Confounding modern misconceptions that a complete suit of armour could be bought off the peg, as it were, the earl went to considerable trouble to source each piece independently. One London armourer supplied him with a pair of plates, which encased his trunk, another made him two bascinets, or helmets, and a third provided the plate defences for his legs (legharneys) and his upper and lower arms (vantbraces and rerebraces), together with plate gauntlets and sabatons, which protected his feet. Another specialist, John Freynch of London, sold him a pair of gilded spurs and mended an old pair for him, charging him £1 3s 4d for the privilege. The job of adding the finishing details, such as the internal padding that prevented the plate pieces chafing and ensured a good fit, making a crest for one of the helmets and a ventail or neckpiece for a bascinet, or producing laces (armyngpointes) for the skilled and onerous task of securing each piece in its correct place, was left to the earl’s own employee, the aptly named Nicholas Armourer. Nicholas was also responsible for repairing broken pieces and sometimes sourcing new ones: on 26 June, for example, he bought a pair of mail thigh defences made in Milan, the acknowledged centre of European armorial expertise. Mail, made of interlinking metal rings, provided a second line of defence under plate armour, particularly at vulnerable points, such as under the arms and at the joints, which were often exposed when moving. A further protective layer closest to the skin was provided by a thickly padded fabric garment, which cushioned the wearer from the weight of the blows falling on his armour. Materials for making a new armyngdoublett “for the lord for when he was about to cross over to French parts” duly appear in the earl marshal’s accounts.²¹

Encased from head to foot in plate armour, with even his face hidden behind the visor of his helmet, the earl would have been unrecognisable among his peers. He therefore spent another small fortune on the blazonry or heraldry that would enable him and his company to be identified. A London embroiderer, John Hunt, was paid the vast sum of £40 for making and embroidering in silk and gold a surcoat, or short, tight-fitting tunic worn over the armour, for the earl and a matching trapper for his horse, both decorated with Mowbray’s arms as earl marshal of England. So much work was involved in this that there was a risk that neither surcoat nor trapper would be ready in time for the campaign, prompting the earl to add a tip of 2s 8d “to hurry up” the process. A London painter was also employed to paint the earl’s arms on trappers, pennons, standards, pavilions and forty-eight shields, the last probably being for decorative rather than military purposes, since shields were an unnecessary encumbrance to a man-at-arms clad head to toe in full plate armour.²²

Though uniforms in the modern sense were unknown at this time, retainers of a great lord were accustomed to wear his livery, supplied at his cost, which included clothing in his chosen colours and badges bearing his arms or device. Sir John Fastolf, for instance, clad the men of his retinue in the distinctive red and white cloth manufactured by the tenants of his manor of Castle Combe in Wiltshire and the contingents of archers raised by the crown in Wales and Cheshire were clearly identifiable by their caps and tunics of green and white. John Mowbray also bought copious amounts of red, white, black and green cloth for members of his household (though his falconers were more appropriately dressed in russet) in the months leading up to the Agincourt campaign. He may even have provided them with their crosses of St George, which the king’s ordinances compelled them to wear on their chests and backs while serving in the royal army.²³

The earl’s preparations extended to his own living accommodation. His pavilion would be equipped with every facility, including a new bed, mattress and bolster, a new seat for his latrine and an old pavilion pressed into service as his wardrobe. His cook busied himself purchasing cauldrons, cooking vessels and bottles, his carter repaired and put in order the wagons that would carry his luggage and his master of horses bought a new pavilion in London that had been specially adapted and fitted out to serve as a stableblock for the duration of the campaign.²⁴

Given the scale of the earl’s expenditure, and his limited income, it was not surprising that he soon ran out of money and was obliged to borrow from Thomas, earl of Arundel. He was by no means the only one who found himself in debt. John Cheyne, an esquire in the retinue of Sir John Cornewaille, wrote in desperation from Southampton on 12 July 1415. “I am hiere, and have been atte greet costages and dispens,” he informed Sir John Pelham. He needed a “certain notable somme er[e] I go” and therefore sent his servant with “certein thynges of meyne” to pledge as security for a loan, which he offered to pay back at whatever terms Pelham suggested. Even so wealthy a magnate as Edward, duke of York, was obliged to mortgage some of his estates before he left England, so that he could meet the wage bill of his vast retinue.²⁵

The earl marshal’s company was typical of most of those now gathering at Southampton, but there were some notable exceptions. In certain instances, these reflected the conditions of the locality in which the men had been recruited. Jehan de Seintpee, unable to recruit archers in his native Aquitaine, brought 100 crossbowmen instead, eighty of them on foot.²⁶ John Merbury, the king’s chamberlain of south Wales, brought 500 archers from Carmarthenshire, Cardiganshire and Brecknockshire, but only twenty men-at-arms, at least three of whom—Meredith ap Owen ap Griffith, Griffith Don and David ap Ieuan ap Trahaiarn—were former rebels who had made their peace with Henry V. They were to meet some of their compatriots, who had not, on the field of Agincourt, fighting for the French.

Some retinues were composed entirely of those with specialist skills. Sir John Greyndor, for instance, brought his own company of nine men-at-arms and thirty archers, but also recruited 120 Welsh miners, six of whom were masters of their craft and paid 12d a day, the rest receiving 6d a day for their services.²⁷ Mining was an essential part of siege-craft, as was the use of artillery. Henry had personally retained twenty-one master gunners and five gunners, each of whom had two “servants of guns,” making a team of seventy-eight in all. The best artillery men in medieval times were said to come from Germany and the Low Countries, so it is interesting to see that most of the king’s master gunners had names suggesting Dutch origin and that he paid the highest rates to obtain their services. Even the ordinary gunners received the same wages as a man-at-arms, but the master gunners were paid an extraordinary 20d a day, a differential that was reflected in the pay of their servants. Gerard Sprunk, the king’s own gunner, by contrast, had only £10, out of which he had to pay four archers.²⁸

In addition to the latest in cannonry, Henry also anticipated using the more traditional catapult assault weapons, such as trebuchets and mangonels, and had gone even further afield to find the best available. The mayor and municipal magistrates of Bordeaux were ordered to send him “two of the best engines, called brides, and a suitable and capable master and carpenter to operate them” for his campaign.²⁹ Henry also took belfries with him. These were two-storey towers on wheels, timber-framed and covered with ox-hides, which could be pushed right up to the besieged position, providing shelter for battering rams, attacking forces and ladders or bridges reaching across to the tops of walls. In order to be able to maintain and repair all these machines, Henry retained 124 carpenters, twenty-five cordwainers (leather-workers, whose numbers indicate that they were not solely employed making and mending shoes), six wheelwrights (who would also be needed to repair the wagons and carts accompanying the expedition) and 120 simple labourers.³⁰

Henry’s personal company, like that of the earl marshal, was an expanded version of his own household. John Waterton, the master of the king’s horse, brought sixty grooms, a surveyor and a clerk of the stable, a clerk and twelve yeoman purveyors of oats for the horses, twelve smiths, nine saddlers and a couple of men whose sole responsibility seems to have been to be “the King’s Guides by night.” Altogether, Waterton appears to have had 233 royal horses in his care, though by the end of the campaign he had a mere ninety-eight, a salutary reminder that horses were no more immune to the impact of war than men. Six bow-makers, six fletchers, a bascinet or helmet specialist called Nicholas Brampton and a team of twelve armourers, led by “Albryght mayl maker,” had responsibility for the armour and weapons of the king’s household. John Conyn, “sergeant of our tents and pavilions,” had four painters and twenty-eight servants to look after the royal pavilions.³¹

The king’s kitchens, which were supervised by William Balne and his two under-clerks, boasted three yeomen and a clerk of the king’s poultry, eight yeomen and a clerk of his bakehouse, three clerks of his spicery, a clerk of his table-linen and another for his hall, a clerk and fifteen assorted labourers for the scullery, plus 156 yeomen and servants not assigned to any particular department. Henry had his own carpenters and labourers “of the hall” and three pages “of his chamber” to act as messengers. His clerks of the marshalcy and the wardrobe, two almoners (responsible for administering the king’s alms-giving) and William Kynwolmersh, the cofferer or treasurer of the royal household, also accompanied the king. Henry’s piety was amply demonstrated by the size of the religious establishment he took with him. The most senior clerics were Master Jean de Bordiu, a Gascon doctor of law and former chancellor of Aquitaine, and Master Esmond Lacy, the dean of the king’s chapel, but there were also three clerks, fifteen chaplains and fourteen monks, the last group having charge of the vestments and altar equipment. Among these clerics was the anonymous chaplain, author of a wonderfully vivid account of the campaign, the Gesta Henrici Quinti, who sat in the baggage train, quaking with fear and praying for victory, as the battle of Agincourt raged around him.³²

No self-respecting medieval monarch or aristocrat ever went far without his band of minstrels, and Henry, a music lover, was no exception. Eighteen minstrels accompanied him to France, each earning 12d a day, the same rate of pay as a man-at-arms. Of these, at least three were trumpeters, three pipers and one a fiddler. Though the instruments of the rest are not specified, it would be normal for there also to be some clarion or wind players and at least one “nakerer,” or drummer. (Medieval manuscripts and carvings often depict the nakerer with two small round drums, slung from a belt and carried at groin level, which perhaps explains the origin of the vulgar term “knackers” for testicles.)³³ Ensemble playing was in its infancy in this period, but the minstrels would play when marching, in the chapel and for recreational purposes: at the siege of Melun in 1420, Henry would have his “six or eight English clarions and divers other instruments” playing “melodiously for a good hour at sunset and at the daybreak.” The trumpeters would also be used on formal occasions, such as to announce the king’s arrival, when fanfares were required, or to attract public attention before proclamations. Most important of all, on military campaigns they were the medieval equivalent of the modern signal corps, enabling commands to be passed quickly and effectively down the line.³⁴

Not all minstrels were musicians, however, and it would be a mistake to assume that all eighteen played instruments. The term had a much more general meaning in the medieval period and corresponds better to the modern definition of an entertainer. Some minstrels told or sang tales of chivalry; others danced, did acrobatics or played the fool. Henry II, in the twelfth century, had been so fond of the favourite party trick of one of his minstrels that he gave him a thirty-acre estate in Suffolk, on the sole condition that he and his heirs repeated it in the royal presence every Christmas. When one learns that the minstrel was known as Roland le Fartere and that the trick was to make a leap, a whistle and a fart, one can understand why his descendants had alienated the estate by the 1330s. Henry V’s tastes were perhaps less crude, though he employed both a royal fool, William, and a tregatour, or conjuror, “Maister John Rykell,” whose sleight of hand earned him immortality in the poet John Lydgate’s Daunce de Macabres.³⁵

There was something of a family tradition in minstrelsy, as Roland le Fartere’s descendants learnt to their cost. Henry V’s marshal of his minstrels, John Clyff, who signed the indenture with the king for service on the Agincourt campaign on behalf of his fellows, was the son or grandson of John of Gaunt’s nakerer. Of the remainder whose surnames are not simply a description of the instrument they played, three were members of the Haliday family. Thomas and Walter, who were probably the sons of William Haliday, were among the group of named minstrels who received bequests of £5 each from Henry V’s will and went on to serve his son. A Walter Haliday and a John Clyff, presumably of another generation, were still active in royal service (albeit the house of York, rather than Lancaster) under Edward IV, and in 1469 were granted a licence to establish a guild of royal minstrels.³⁶

The same sort of family tradition affected the heraldic profession. This was not surprising, since heralds had begun life as minstrels, and only achieved their distinctive status as the knowledge required of them grew more specialised and technical. Hereditary badges had been used on the shields of knights and nobles since the twelfth century, developing into a unique heraldic device or blazon for each individual, which heralds were expected to recognise instantly. By the late fourteenth century, heralds had also established themselves as the rule-makers and judges of the chivalric world. As the acknowledged experts on the history and drawing up of blazonry, they were called upon to identify the arms of those fighting in joust, tournament and war, to judge cases of disputed arms and to confirm orders of social precedence. Their knowledge of chivalric conventions and rules of conduct also made them unrivalled masters of ceremony, whose responsibility it was to award the palm of honour to those who displayed outstanding combat prowess and to organise all the social ritual connected with knighthood, from tournament to coronation. Last, but not least, they had become the authors of chivalric record, drawing up reference books of English and continental coats of arms, preserving exceptionally fine examples of jousting challenges and chronicling deeds of chivalry. It was no accident that at least two of the eyewitness accounts of the battle of Agincourt were drawn up by heralds. “Yours is a fair office,” the allegorical figure Dame Prudence declared in one of the popular literary debates regarding heralds written in about 1430, “for by your report men judge of worldly honour.”³⁷

In times of war, heralds had a very important role to play. It was their responsibility to record for posterity the granting of knighthoods in the field, to note the arms and names of those who fought well and, more macabrely, to identify and record the dead; they were sometimes even required to judge who had won the victory. They were also expected to act as messengers between the warring parties, delivering defiances, demanding surrenders and requesting truces or safe-conducts.³⁸ This duty had developed out of their original function of delivering jousting challenges, both nationally and internationally, often to hostile nations. Like knighthood, the possession of heraldic office was regarded as transcending national boundaries and allegiance, ensuring a herald diplomatic immunity and honourable treatment wherever he went in Europe.³⁹

Every nobleman had his own herald, but by the fifteenth century a hierarchy had developed with the kings of arms at the top and pursuivants at the bottom. In England, the kings of arms were royal appointments and the realm was divided into four provinces. England itself had a northern and a southern province, presided over by Lancaster and Leicester kings of arms respectively; then there was also a king of arms for Ireland and for Aquitaine (Guyenne). Despite their names, all were based at court, and all were summoned to attend the king for the Agincourt campaign.⁴⁰

The other essential profession represented in every major retinue was the medical one. The king himself took his personal physician, Master Nicholas Colnet, and twenty-three surgeons. There was an important distinction between the physician, who was at the top of the medical tree and responsible only for diagnosis and prescription, and the surgeon, who was less learned and more practical, carrying out operations, treating fractures and wounds and applying plasters and purges. Though there was much jostling for position between the two, they were united in their disdain for the barber-surgeons and unlicensed practitioners (usually women) whose ignorance, superstition and lack of skill they deplored. Nevertheless, women were practising as both physicians and surgeons. Westminster Abbey employed women in both capacities, even though it meant that they had to come within the precincts of the monastery and, inevitably, have close physical contact with the monks; they were well paid for their services, too, suggesting that they were effective.⁴¹

Most physicians were not only men but also university graduates who had studied for up to fourteen years to obtain a doctorate in medicine. For authority, they relied heavily on classical texts, such as those by Hippocrates and Galen, and for diagnosis, they looked mainly to the analysis of urine, whose colour was compared to a graduated chart that depicted every hue from white to red, including green. Nicholas Colnet was a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, who had entered royal service as a clerk and physician in 1411, but owed his advancement to Henry V. In August 1414, at the king’s personal request, Colnet was granted a papal dispensation allowing him to remain a cleric in minor orders, so that his medical services to Henry were not interrupted by ecclesiastical promotion or transfer. He was one of the first to sign an indenture for service on the Agincourt campaign, for which he was to receive the same rate of pay as a man-at-arms, 12d a day, and to bring with him three archers.⁴²

Henry V’s personal surgeon, Thomas Morstede, was one of the most interesting men on the Agincourt campaign. Originally from Betchworth, near Dorking, in Surrey, by 1401 he had moved to London and was working there as a humble “leche.” As a young surgeon, he may have been present when John Bradmore removed the arrow from Henry’s face after the battle of Shrewsbury, an operation he was later able to describe in detail. Like Colnet, he owed his rapid rise to wealth and fame to royal patronage. In 1410 he was retained as the king’s surgeon, on a salary of £40 a year, an office that was confirmed on Henry V’s accession, on condition that the king had exclusive use of his services. At the same time, he was also appointed to the highly profitable post of examiner, or collector of customs, for all vessels passing through the port of London, the actual work being delegated to his deputies. Like Colnet, he signed an indenture for service on the Agincourt campaign on 29 April 1415, having successfully petitioned the king to be allowed to take twelve men of his profession and of his own choosing, together with three archers. Unusually, he was to have the same wages as Colnet, an indication not only of his abilities but also of the enhanced role he was likely to play in a war situation; the other surgeons were to receive 6d a day, in common with the archers.⁴³

A second royal surgeon, William Bradwardyn, was also retained to serve on the Agincourt campaign with a team of nine surgeons under his command. Bradwardyn was older than Morstede, having served Richard II on his Irish expedition in 1394 and been retained by him for life in 1397. The change of regime had not affected his career, though he too seems to have found a patron in the prince of Wales, rather than Henry IV, who preferred foreign doctors.⁴⁴ Despite Bradwardyn’s evident seniority, it was Morstede who was the chief surgeon in the king’s army. He was clearly an open-minded, dynamic and ambitious man. Frustrated by the traditional rivalry between physicians and surgeons, and by the incompetence of so many of those in the medical profession, he initiated a project in 1423 to found the first English college of medicine. Its aims were to introduce better education and supervision for all those engaged in the medical profession, including the setting of common examinations, inspecting premises stocking medicines, regulating fees and providing free medical care to the poor. The college was to consist of two self-governing bodies, one for physicians and one for surgeons, under the joint leadership of an annually elected rector. Morstede himself was the first master of surgery to be appointed (Bradwardyn, significantly, was only a vice-master). The college collapsed a few years later under the stresses of the antipathy between the two professions, but Morstede did not give up his dream, and in 1435 he was the driving force behind the foundation of the Mystery, or Guild, of Surgeons, a professional body that survives to this day.⁴⁵

Morstede’s dedication to his profession prompted him to train dozens of apprentices, lend other surgeons books from his extensive library and make regular and generous charitable donations to prisoners and the poor. In 1431 he married a wealthy widow, who was the daughter of John Michell, a former alderman, sheriff and mayor of London; he served as sheriff of London himself in 1436 and, unusually for a surgeon at this time, was granted a coat of arms. By 1436 he was listed as the fourth wealthiest person in the city, having an annual income of £154 ($102,647 at today’s values) from lands in London, Surrey, Essex, Suffolk and Lincolnshire. Possibly Morstede’s greatest claim to fame, however, was that he wrote the Fair Book of Surgery, which became the standard surgical textbook of the fifteenth century.⁴⁶ Written in English, so that it was far more accessible than the Latin tracts and compendia then available, the Fair Book of Surgery drew on Morstede’s decades of experience in Henry’s wars and was illustrated with helpful examples of successful operations. It was an eminently pragmatic teaching manual, but it was also an unusually ethical work. Other treatises of this kind had often displayed an unhealthy degree of cynicism. Henri de Mondeville, for instance, recommended that surgeons should use magical cures, not because they worked, but “so that if they do effect a cure the surgeon will be credited with a marvellous piece of work, while if they do not he will not be accused of having omitted some vital step.” Mondeville advised surgeons always to charge for medicine because the more expensive the cure, the more confidence the patient would have in it. He also suggested that all doctors should use big words and, if necessary, make up terms to impress their patients: “the ordinary man believes that pronouncements which he does not understand are more effective than those which he understands perfectly well.” The more imposing the name of the condition, the more ill the patient felt himself to be: “give some awful names to the illnesses of ignorant peasants if you want to get any money out of them,” he suggested.⁴⁷

Morstede’s attitude and approach were completely different. It was the duty of a surgeon, he wrote, to have a thorough understanding of “the principles of surgery, in theory and in practice, [and] . . . all things which are comprehended in anatomy.” He should be well trained and experienced, with “small fingers and steadfast hands, not trembling, and clear of sight.” Finally, he should be “well mannered . . . gracious to sick folk, and merciful to poor folk, and not too greedy but reasonable, to set his salary considering the labour of the cure, and the worthiness and the poverty of the patient, and not to meddle with no cures that he supposes are not capable of curing.”⁴⁸

With his emphasis on the importance of anatomy—including a cut-by-cut description of how to dissect a newly dead body, “as of them whose heads have been smitten off or hanged”—Morstede placed a premium on practical experience and observation over simple book-learning. In common with all other medieval practitioners, he might not have realised that the blood circulated continuously round the body, rather than dissipating into the flesh like sap into leaves, but he knew his internal organs, his bones, cartilage, veins and arteries, muscles, ligaments and sinews.⁴⁹

Death in battle was a possibility that no one preparing to go to France could afford to ignore. Hamon le Straunge, a man-at-arms in the company of Sir Thomas Erpingham, thus made careful provision for his wife, Alienor, in the event of his death, setting his seal to his will on 10 June 1415. The king himself drew up his will on 24 July, leaving generous bequests, ranging from beds to horses, to his “most dear brother” Bedford and his “dearest brother” Gloucester, but nothing at all, not even a personal memento, to his brother Clarence, who would, nevertheless, inherit the kingdom. There were individual bequests, too, for “our most dear grandmother, the countess of Hereford,” for the officers of his household and his chamber, his physician Nicholas Colnet, and his chaplains. Henry’s two religious foundations, the Carthusian monastery at Sheen and the Bridgettine house at Syon, were to benefit from legacies of one thousand marks each. His body was to be buried in the church of Westminster Abbey, where a tomb was to be built, serviced by its own altar.⁵⁰

As one would expect from so pious a king, Henry also made provision for his own soul, trusting for redemption in the intervention of the virgin Mary and a holy host of angels, saints and martyrs, including his own personal favourites, Edward the Confessor, St John of Bridlington and St Brigit of Sweden. Thirty poor men were to be fed and clothed for a year on condition that they daily repeated the prayer, “Mother of God, remember thy servant Henry who placed his whole trust in thee.” In addition, twenty thousand masses were to be sung as soon as possible after his death, the title and number of each one being laid down with his usual meticulous attention to detail. Though it has been suggested that twenty thousand masses was an excessive number, reflecting a guilty conscience for embarking on an unjust war, such extravagance was by no means unusual in the medieval period. Piety rather than guilt dictated the scale. At the end of the will, which was written in Latin, Henry signed his initials and then added his own personal plea in English, “Jesu Mercy and Gramercy. Lady Marie help.”⁵¹

Four days after making his will, Henry wrote for the final time to Charles VI of France. Ostensibly it was a last-ditch attempt to avert war: a personal appeal from one man to another, prompted by the dictates of conscience and, in particular, a wish to avoid bloodshed. Henry pleaded for a settlement of their quarrel and the restoration of peace between two great nations which were “once united, now divided.” Charles should know, he declared, that “we call to witness in conscience the Supreme Judge, over whom neither entreaties nor bribes can prevail, that, in our sincere zeal for peace, we have tried every way possible to obtain peace. If we had not done so, we would have rashly given away the just title of our inheritance, to the eternal prejudice of posterity.”⁵²

For many modern commentators this letter is simply another example of Henry’s hypocrisy: he was mouthing platitudes about peace and justice but, in reality, “whatever the cost, he wanted war.”⁵³ Such an interpretation misses the point. It is true that the king had no intention of abandoning his campaign at this late stage and that this “last request” was pregnant with threat—it was written “at the very moment of making our crossing” and dated from “our town of Southampton on the sea shore”—making it clear that invasion was imminent. It is also true that he did not expect to extract any further concessions from the French that would be substantial enough to persuade him to call off the expedition. It is even true that the letter was a useful tool in the propaganda war because it could be copied and distributed to allies of both sides as evidence of the English willingness to compromise. (It was no accident that transcripts of it were to appear in many contemporary chronicles.)⁵⁴

Nevertheless, this “last request” was not a cynical, empty gesture. Henry was, with his customary attention to detail, following precisely the code of conduct that governed the medieval laws of war. If Henry V’s war to recover his rights in France was to be accepted as morally justified in the eyes of the world and, more importantly, of God, it was crucial that every step he took along the path was correct and followed the prescribed form. He had already consulted the “wise men” of his kingdom both in Parliament and in his great council. More recently, he had taken the second step of consulting impartial international opinion on the justice of his cause, ordering notarised transcripts to be made, under the seal of the archbishop of Canterbury, of the 1412 Treaty of Bourges, in which the Armagnac princes had recognised English sovereignty in Aquitaine. He had sent these copies to Constance (now in Switzerland), where the general council of the Church was in session, and to European princes, including the Holy Roman Emperor, “to this end: that all Christendom might know what great acts of injustice the French had inflicted on him, and that, as it were reluctantly and against his will, he was being compelled to raise his standards against rebels.”⁵⁵

The third and final step in this quasi-judicial process was to set out the case before the adversary himself and ask for the restitution of his rights. Henry’s letter to Charles VI had taken precisely this form. In it he made a point of citing the twentieth chapter of the biblical book of Deuteronomy, which formed the basis of the medieval laws of war and commanded that “when you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it.”⁵⁶ It was a quotation that would appear repeatedly on Henry’s lips and dictate his actions throughout the coming war with France.

There was now nothing left to be done except to begin the enterprise that had been so long in preparation. On 29 July Henry gave the order for everyone engaged in his service to embark upon the ships allocated to them and to be ready to sail by 1 August at the latest. The discovery of the Cambridge plot and the necessity of dealing with the culprits caused an unexpected delay, but six days later Henry left Portchester Castle on board a barge, which took him out into the deeper waters between Southampton and Portsmouth, where his flagship, the Trinity Royal, was waiting for him. As soon as he was on board, the signal was given for all the ships of the fleet in the various ports and harbours along the south coast to make haste to join him. All he needed was a favourable wind as he prepared to set sail for France.⁵⁷