Henry IV (49 page)

¹⁹
Walsingham said Worcester brought money with him from London to pay his nephew's troops (
SAC II
, 359).

²⁰
For Thomas Percy's retinue, see E 101/404/24, fo. 4 and roll 2: he was contracted to bring 40 men-at-arms and 200 archers, but seems to have had 48 men-at-arms and 212 archers. The scores of men listed on fos. 8–10 who received no wages after 24 June
pro prodicione
(‘for treason’) probably include many of his retainers, although others were paid up to 17 July, indicating that they declined to join the earl in abandoning the prince.

²¹
For the king's movements, see E 101/404/21. A great council was summoned to Westminster on 28 May to discuss the Anglo-French talks: E 403/576, 25 May.

²²
SAC II
, 357;
POPC
, i.204–5.

²³
Added, perhaps, to the fact that he was quite incapable of providing the earl with the £20,000 he had requested in order ‘to preserve the good name of the chivalry of your realm’.

²⁴
POPC
, i.206–7.

²⁵
POPC
, i.207–9;
Foedera
, viii.313–14. A group of London merchants loaned £1,000 almost immediately: £666 was delivered to the king at Burton and £666 to the prince at Shrewsbury. On the same day, £666 was also sent to Northumberland and Hotspur for the wages of their northern retainers, although presumably it was actually despatched a few days before this: E 403/576, 17 July, E 101/404/24, fo. 1, fo. 49r (John Clynke, messenger to the prince); E 403/578, 10 Dec. (Hugh Malpas, the royal sumpterman). Henry also borrowed 2,500 marks from Lewys de Portico, a merchant of Lucca, whom he met ‘sur notre chemyn vers la bataille de Salobirs’, perhaps an arranged, rather than a chance, encounter (E 404/22, no. 278, writ of repayment, dated 1 March 1407).

²⁶
SAC II
, 363–5. Although he had accompanied Hotspur to Cocklaw, Dunbar seems to have been back in London in early July, where he collected assignments for his exchequer annuity (E 403/576, 2 and 6 July).

²⁷
The Shrewsbury burgesses later claimed to have burned the suburb on one side of the town (presumably the north) ‘in order to save the town’ (
PROME
, viii.443).

²⁸
For the battle, see Clarke and Galbraith, ‘Deposition of Richard II’ (
Dieulacres Chronicle)
, 178–9;
SAC II
, 359–73;
Hardyng
, 351–3, 361–2;
CE
, 396–7; and
Usk
, 169.
Scotichronicon
, viii.57–9, and
A Collection of the Chronicles and Ancient Histories of Great Britain, by Jean de Wavrin
, ed. W. Hardy (6 vols, RS, London, 1864–91), i.58–67, are hopelessly misinformed.

²⁹
Brut
, ii.363;
Giles
, 33;
SAC II
, 373. From the king's side, the negotiations were led by the abbots of Shrewsbury and Haughmond, and the keeper of the privy seal, Thomas Langley.

³⁰
The manifesto which Hardyng claimed was presented to the king ‘in the field’ by two of Hotspur's esquires focuses overwhelmingly on Henry's perjury in 1399 towards both Richard II and the Percys themselves, although its authenticity is questionable. Hardyng had not included this manifesto in the first (‘Lancastrian’) version of his chronicle, only adding it after a Yorkist king came to the throne in 1461; he said that it was addressed to Henry by the earl of Northumberland, who was not there, as well as Hotspur and Worcester. Hardyng also claimed to have seen letters in Warkworth castle bearing the seals of lords who had promised to join Hotspur in revolt but then let him down, but if these existed they have not survived (
Hardyng
, 362). For someone who claimed to be at the battle, his account of it is remarkably brief; see also Bean, ‘Henry IV and the Percies’, 216–17 (although Bean's similar criticisms of the Dieulacres chronicler are less justified).

³¹
Messengers seem to have passed regularly between Hotspur and Glyn Dŵr (
Giles
, 30–1;
Original Letters
, i.9).

³²
Northumberland's claim in June 1403 that the king owed them £20,000 was an exaggeration (Bean, ‘Henry IV and the Percies’, 222–4); Steel,
Receipt
, 133–4, shows that others suffered from uncashable tallies considerably more than they did. For Hotspur's complaints, see Dunn,
Politics of Magnate Power
, 100–1, who points out that both he and his father also profited considerably from their wardship of the Mortimer estates in England and Wales. However, they did sometimes have to pay troops from their own resources, as the king acknowledged (
CDS
, v, no. 915).

³³
The French royal chronicler, poorly informed about the Percy rebellion, believed that he was ‘tormented by his notorious betrayal of King Richard, his natural lord’ and motivated by ‘tardy remorse’
(Saint-Denys
, iii.111).

³⁴
Davies,
Revolt
, 181–2, 242.

³⁵
Boardman,
Early Stewart Kings
, 269. Archibald was now calling himself ‘earl of Douglas, lord of Galloway and Dunbar’ (
RHL I
, 56).

³⁶
SAC II
, 369;
Usk
, 169. Dunbar was later permitted to call his herald ‘Shrewsbury herald’ in recognition of his role there (A. Macdonald, ‘George Dunbar, Ninth Earl of Dunbar or March’,
ODNB
, 17.207–10;
CDS
, iv.148).

³⁷
Dieulacres Chronicle
, 179. Hotspur's son Henry was born in 1393; his mother was aunt to the earl of March.

³⁸
M. Strickland and R. Hardy,
The Great Warbow
(London, 2005), 262–5; Priestley,
The Battle of Shrewsbury
, 10–16.

³⁹
Or occasionally Bull field or Old field; I am grateful to Philip Morgan for information on this. The royal wardrobe account refers to it as ‘the field of Hynsifeld near Shrewsbury’ (E 101/404/21, fo. 49r).

⁴⁰
SAC II
, 371. One indication of the number of arrows used at the battle of Shrewsbury is the despatch of four cartloads of bows, arrows and bowstrings from the Tower a few days later to replenish the royal army's stock (E 403/576, 20 July, 4 Sept.). Some of the payments entered under 17 and 20 July on this exchequer issue roll were entered several days or even weeks later: for example, the king's proclamation announcing the death of Hotspur and capture of Worcester is entered under 17 July, four days before the battle.

⁴¹
Also providential, according to Walsingham, was the fact that Hotspur had spent the night before the battle at Berwick, since it was rumoured that he had once been told that he would die at Berwick, which he naturally thought meant Berwick-upon-Tweed (
SAC II
, 367).

⁴²
The names of about fifty of the dead are known. The Dieulacres chronicler said that 1,847 died on the field, a Durham chronicler 2,291. The Wigmore chronicler's statement that 3,460 bodies were buried in the mass grave is probably an exaggeration: he stated that the grave was 100 feet long, 24 feet wide and 12 feet deep (Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ms Film 54, fos. 39–40). I am grateful to Philip Morgan for allowing me to read his chapter ‘The Days of the Dead’ from his forthcoming book on the battle, where he argues that the armies were probably rather smaller than the 10,000–12,000 often suggested. Cf. Mortimer,
Fears
, appendix 4.

⁴³
CDS
, iv.136.

⁴⁴
Strickland and Hardy,
Great Warbow
, 284–5; Bradmore received £2 for buying medicines in the wardrobe account for 1402–3: E 101/404/21, fo. 40v.

⁴⁵
Presumably the tongs were pushed into the socket from which the shaft had been drawn, then the screw inserted to push them apart until they held fast against the sides of the socket, allowing the arrow-head to be pulled out. The operation must have been excruciatingly painful.

⁴⁶
Immediately after the battle Hotspur's body was interred for the night at Whitchurch (Shropshire) before being brought back to Shrewsbury; his other quarters were sent to London, Bristol, Newcastle and Chester to be displayed there (
CPR 1401–5
, 299; Wylie,
Henry the Fourth
, i.364).

⁴⁷
The
Brut
(ii.549) records that when Sir John Stanley, wounded on the king's side at Shrewsbury, was asked what advice he had for Cheshire, he told the king ‘Burn and slay, burn and slay!’ Thomas Percy's head was displayed on London Bridge (
SAC II
, 377;
Foedera
, viii.320;
CPR 1401–5
, 293).

⁴⁸
Foedera
, viii.319.

⁴⁹
CPR 1401–5
, 292–3;
Foedera
, viii.321; E 403/576, 17 July.

⁵⁰
The citizens of Newcastle refused to allow the earl's troops in the town, although they allowed him to enter with a few servants; when his troops tried to force an entry the next day, they were beaten off (
SAC II
, 377–8).

⁵¹
According to
Hardyng
(361) the earl had agreed to come south to join Hotspur, but ‘failed him foul without witte or rede’.

⁵²
Boardman,
Early Stewart Kings
, 270.

⁵³
SAC II
, 377.

⁵⁴
SAC II
, 381;
CE
, 397.

⁵⁵
CE
, 398;
SAC II
, 381.

⁵⁶
His seal was brought to him from London to do this: E 403/578, 9 Nov. His keeper at Baginton was Henry's esquire, Thomas Totty: E 101/404/21, fo. 40v; A. King, ‘They Have the Hertes of the People by North: Northumberland, the Percies and Henry IV, 1399–1408’, in
Henry IV: The Establishment of the Regime
, ed. G. Dodd and D. Biggs (York, 2003), 139–59.

⁵⁷
POPC
, i.209–17;
Foedera
, viii.322–3;
RHL I
, 204. The castles were Berwick, Alnwick, Warkworth, Prudhoe, Langley and Cockermouth. Scottish prisoners from Humbleton Hill were still held in some of them.

⁵⁸
POPC
, ii.79–80. Clifford proposed to use those of Hotspur's valuables which were in his possession to maintain the boy. The king believed these were worth at least £2,666, Clifford much less. For his betrayal of William Serle, see below, pp. 263–4.; A. King, ‘Sir William Clifford: Rebellion and Reward in Henry IV's Affinity’, in
The Fifteenth Century IX: English and Continental Perspectives
, ed. L. Clark (Woodbridge, 2010), 139–54 at pp. 148–9. By December 1404 Clifford was once again being paid his royal annuity of £40 (E 403/580, 2 Dec.).

⁵⁹
PROME
, viii.222, 231–3, 279;
CE
, 400; for his mainpernors, see C 49/48, no. 5; three weeks after his pardon he was receiving new tallies for failed assignments for £786 dating from 1401–2 (E 403/578, 26 Feb.).

⁶⁰
CPR 1401–5
, 412; Bean, ‘Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland’,
ODNB
, 43.694–702;
SAC II
, 417.

⁶¹
Clarke and Galbraith, ‘Deposition of Richard II’ (
Dieulacres Chronicle
), 176–7.

⁶²
Philip Morgan, personal communication.

Chapter 16

LOUIS OF ORLÉANS AND OWAIN GLYN DŴR (1403–1405)

Although it removed the threat from the Percys, the battle of Shrewsbury did little to alleviate Henry's problems elsewhere. Indeed, even the humbling of the Percys was a mixed blessing, for the question now arose as to how to govern the north without them. The king's answer was to appoint his fourteen-year-old son John as his lieutenant: for the remainder of the reign Prince John and the earl of Westmorland divided the East and West Marches between them, but their ability to conciliate disaffected Percy supporters was limited, especially in Northumberland, where there were many such as William Clifford who yearned for the restoration of Percy power.

Nor did Hotspur's death do anything to check Glyn Dŵr; on the contrary, the following eighteen months would see his rebellion reduce still further the effective sphere of English authority in Wales. Following his interview with Northumberland at York in mid-August 1403, Henry had made his way back to Wales to try to repair the damage done by the rebels over the previous few months.
¹
By now, the annual autumn exercise in not finding Glyn Dŵr was acquiring a familiar, if depressing, rhythm, although since Henry's campaigns were essentially reactive there were always variations. On this occasion, his principal objective was the relief of Carmarthen, the major royal stronghold in South Wales. Arriving on 24 September, he spent five days there, reinforcing the garrison with 550 men and restoring the town's defences, before returning to Hereford on 3 October.
²
He remained close to the border, mainly at Gloucester, Bristol and Cirencester, for over a month, despatching orders to the sheriffs and nobles of the south-west to array troops to come with him ‘to meet the traitor and with the aid of God destroy him’, but if this gave the impression that he planned to re-enter Wales in person it was misleading; by the middle of November
he was on his way back to Westminster and, yet again, barely had he left before Glyn Dŵr's followers renewed their attacks.
³
Cardiff, Kidwelly and Caernarfon were all besieged in November 1403, and at the latter two the besiegers included Frenchmen and Bretons.
⁴

The threat from France was growing apace. Until now, the attempts of Louis of Orléans and his acolytes to undermine Henry had consisted of semi-covert attacks on English shipping, the despatch of a small expeditionary force to Scotland, and increasingly abusive letters of defiance. The latter were certainly an irritation and threatened to become more than that: in the spring of 1403, Henry delayed the ratification of the truce of Paris until he had received assurances that they had been written without the consent of Charles VI or the French council, and that they did not constitute a disavowal of the truce.
⁵
In practice, however, the extension of the truce heralded not a diminution but a sharp escalation in Anglo-French hostilities.