Henry V: The Background, Strategies, Tactics and Battlefield Experiences of the Greatest Commanders of History Paperback (18 page)

unsuitable for command in the field due to his mental state. Coming to the Bibliotheque Nationale, throne in 1380 at the age of 11, Charles was first struck by a fit of mental Paris. To the left is shown incapacity at the age of 21 and these recurred throughout his reign. His mental Charles VI of France and to weakness led to a power struggle developing for control of the kingdom the right Henry V of

between the princes of the royal blood, notably Philip the Bold of Burgundy, England. By rights Charles the King's uncle, and Louis of Orleans, the King's brother. The death of Philip VI should have been the Bold in 1404 saw his son John the Fearless take up the struggle, which Henry's prime adversary culminated in the murder of Louis of Orleans in Paris in 1407, an act that led during his campaigns in the two factions, the Burgundians and the Armagnacs - so called after the Normandy, but the French new duke, Charles of Orleans' father-in-law, Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac king's mental infirmity

- to the brink of civil war. This left the French nobility split between two meant that it would have powerful factions and unable to unite even in the face of the external threat to be the Dauphin and the posed by Henry's invasion of 1415.

great lords of France that

In the absence of the king, his heir, the Dauphin, might have been expected stood up to Henry.

to take charge. However, the spectre of the capture of John II following the (akg-images/VISIOARS) battle of Poitiers in 1356 haunted the

French monarchy and the Dauphin, the

19-year-old Louis of Guienne, stayed with

his father at Rouen.

The command of the French forces

during the Agincourt campaign therefore

devolved onto the other royal princes and

dukes and those commanders appointed

to the offices of Constable of France and

Marshal of France. There was certainly a

plethora of French aristocracy during the

Agincourt campaign. Most senior was the

24-year-old Charles, Duke of Orleans,

followed by the 33-year-old John, Duke

of Bourbon, and the 30-year-old John,

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Duke of Alen^on. None of these three had a great

deal of military experience, certainly nothing to

compare to Henry V, and much was expected of

the Constable and Marshal of France.

The Constable was Charles d'Albret, who had

served in the role from 1402 to 1411 before being

dismissed by the Burgundian faction. The

Armagnac rise to power saw him restored to his

role in 1413 and he was a professional soldier of

long standing. The Marshal was an even more

famous warrior, Jean le Meingre. Known as

Boucicaut, his father had also been Marshal and

he served at the battle of Roosebeke of 1382

where he was knighted. He then fought with

the Teutonic Order in Livonia and Prussia

throughout the 1380s and 90s, before taking part

in the Franco-Hungarian crusade against the

Ottomans that came to grief at the battle of

Nicopolis in 1396 at the hands of the Ottoman

sultan Bayezid. Boucicaut was captured here and

spent time at the Ottoman capital Bursa before

being ransomed. He returned to Constantinople

in 1399 to defend Genoese interests there.

Marshal Boucicaut, Jean

In addition to his military exploits he had also founded a chivalric order in

le Meingre, shown kneeling

1399, the Emprise de l'Escu vert a la Dame Blanche, and was widely respected

and praying at the bottom

throughout both armies.

left of this illustration

Of these senior French commanders, d'Albret fell on the battlefield of

from a book of hours

Agincourt as did Alengon. Boucicaut, Orleans and Bourbon became prisoners

commissioned by him.

of the English, destined to spend a long time in captivity. Bourbon and

His wife kneels opposite

Boucicaut both died in captivity, the former at Bolingbroke in 1434, the latter

him. Boucicaut proved one

in Yorkshire in 1421. Charles, Duke of Orleans, would return to France, but not

of the more professional

until 1440, apparently speaking English rather better than his native French.

of the French commanders,

Following the death or capture of so many of France's leaders at the battle

but was restricted by the

of Agincourt, a whole new generation of commanders was required to try and

lack of unity within the

stem Henry's subsequent conquest of Normandy, of which the most notable

French command.

was the new Dauphin of France following the deaths of both Louis of Guienne

(Author's collection)

in 1415 and his successor, John, Duke of Touraine, - Charles, Count of

Ponthieu. Charles was unable to prevent Henry's conquests of 1417-19, and his

acquiescence in the murder of John the Fearless of Burgundy in 1419 drove the

Burgundian faction into the hands of the English and nearly lost him his

crown, disinherited as he was by the Treaty of Troyes in 1420. However,

following the death of both Henry V and his father, and the putative accession

to the French throne of the young Henry VI, Charles claimed the throne as

Charles VII and, assisted by Joan of Arc, was crowned in Reims in July 1429.

By the end of his reign Charles had succeeded in recapturing all of the lands

lost to the English with the exception of the immediate area around Calais.

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W H E N W A R IS D O N E

Hung be the heavens with black: yield, day, to night!

Comets, importing change of times and states,

Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky,

And with them scourge the bad revolting stars

That have consented unto Henry's death:

King Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long:

England ne'er lost a king of so much worth.

1 Henry VI,
I. i. 1-7

So Shakespeare has John, Duke of Bedford, Henry's younger brother, Troyes Cathedral provided

lamenting at the beginning of his play
Henry VI, Parti.
The Duke of Bedford the backdrop for the was to play a central role in the organization and defence of the English signing of the Treaty of kingdom of France created by Henry's conquests and now inherited by his Troyes on the high altar

son, the new Henry VI. Henry V had given much thought to the disposition on 21 May 1420, following of his conquests as well as his soul in his final days, and the writer of the which Henry and Katherine
The First English Life of Henry V
describes the careful manner in which he were betrothed in the arranged for the governance of his kingdom:

same church. This was

the document that really

The Kings disease dayly increased, vntill that most Christian Kinge yealded his

established the Lancastrian

soule to God, departed this life in the Castell of that is called Bois de Vistenne

kingdom of France

[Bois-de-Vincennes], not farr from Parris; where at that time was present Kinge

i n h erited by H e n ry VI i n

Charles and the two Queenes. But tofore his death this most prudent Kinge in

1422. (Author's collection)

his Testament disposed the care and garde of the younge

Prince, his sonn, and the defence of the Realme of

Englande, to his most deere brother, Humphrie, Duke

of Glocester... the custody of the bodie of the younge

Prince the Kinge committed to his vnckle the Duke of

Excester, to endoctrine him in all good manners. And

the reuenews of the Dutchie of Normandie the Kinge

bequeathe to his right puissant brother John, Duke of

Bedforde, for the gouernance and defence of the same

Dutchie and of the Realme of Fraunce.

In the event, the parliament of December 1422

preferred to appoint Bedford as 'protector, defender

and chief councillor of England', with Humphrey,

Duke of Gloucester, only acting in his stead when he

was out of the country fulfilling his role in France.

In addition to this, parliament was unwilling to accept

one individual as regent, appointing a council of 16

instead to govern the country. This caused a degree

of inter-magnate rivalry and strife, particularly

between Gloucester and his uncle, Henry Beaufort,

55