Henry V: The Warrior King of 1415

Ian Mortimer

• Publisher: RosettaBooks
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780795335495
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

From an award-winning historian: "A new and convincing likeness of medieval England's most iconic king" ( The Sunday Times).
 
This biography by the bestselling author of The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England takes an insightful look at the life of Henry V, casting new light on a period in history often held up as legend.
 
A great English hero, Henry V was lionized by Shakespeare and revered by his countrymen for his religious commitment, his sense of justice, and his military victories. Here, noted historian and biographer Ian Mortimer takes a look at the man behind the legend and offers a clear, historically accurate, and realistic representation of a ruler who was all too human—and digs up fascinating details about Henry V's reign that have been lost to history, including the brutal strategies he adopted at the Battle of Agincourt.
 
"The most illuminating exploration of the reality of 15th-century life that I have ever read." — The Independent
"Compelling, exuberant . . . vivid." —Simon Sebag Montefiore, New York Times–bestselling author of The Romanovs: 1613–1918
 

Notes

Prologue

1. McFarlane, Lancastrian Kings, p. 133. It is worth noting that McFarlane did not specify what he meant by ‘greatness’ or ‘the greatest man’.

2. McFarlane wrote ‘the historian cannot honestly write biographical history: his province is rather the growth of social organisations, of civilisation, of ideas’ (quoted in Harriss, Cardinal Beaufort, v).

Introduction

1. Vaughan, John the Fearless, pp. 44–8.

2. Vaughan, John the Fearless, pp. 71–2.

3. Vaughan, John the Fearless, p. 85. The guidebook to La tour Jean sans Peur, Paris, suggests that it was not actually the duke’s bedchamber. The reasons it gives are that the tower is small, and not of the expected ducal grandeur. The chamber beneath the duke’s is described today as the equerry’s chamber. However, Vaughan’s statement, based on the building accounts, is explicit: the principal room was indeed designed for John’s personal safety at night. The fifteenth-century chronicler Monstrelet also states specifically that he built this tower to sleep in at night. The two chambers are supported on huge stone pillars, rising twenty-five feet or so above the first-floor guard chamber, and reached only by an extremely elaborately carved stone staircase, which incorporates several of the duke’s heraldic badges. The wonderful staircase ceiling suggests strongly that, although this was a small chamber, it was intended to be seen by the duke. The whole edifice amounted to a lordly stone box supported sixty feet above the walls of Paris. And as the tower was constructed in 1408–9, after the murder of Orléans and John’s return to the city, I suspect that the extraordinary design, incorporating so much empty space, was a means of preventing the duke being attacked in his bedchamber by the use of fire. The tower is illustrated in the second plate section of this book.

4. Allmand, Henry V, p. 48. There had been earlier embassies appointed to negotiate with Burgundian ambassadors—e.g. those of 3 July 1406 and 29 November 1410 (Hardy, Syllabus, pp. 556, 566) but these seem to have been for the defence of Calais and the local truce. See Nicolas (ed.), Privy Council, ii, pp. 5–6 for the instructions to the ambassadors appointed on 29 November 1410.

5. Fears, esp. p. 322.

6. Fears, p. 337; Allmand, Henry V, p. 48.

7. Monstrelet, i, pp. 18–19. Although the then duke of Burgundy (Philip the Bold) was excepted by Louis in this agreement, this was only with regard to Louis’ part of the bargain. In other words, Henry would have still been liable to help Louis against John the Fearless’s father even though Louis was not bound to help Henry against the duke of Burgundy.

8. Fears, pp. 114, 134–5, 155.

9. Hardy, Syllabus, ii, pp. 567–8. An extension of the truce in Flanders was sealed on 27 May 1411.

10. In support of this it should be noted that on the same day that Henry appointed the ambassadors to treat with the Burgundians at Calais he granted safe conduct for ambassadors of the king of France to come to England. See Syllabus, ii, p. 566. See also p. 567, where redress of injuries with ambassadors from Burgundy and France are simultaneously authorised on 27 March 1411.

11. Curry, Agincourt, p. 26.

12. Fears, p. 339; Nicolas (ed.), Privy Council, ii, pp. 19–24.

13. Given-Wilson (ed.), PROME, 1411 November (Introduction) states the fleet sailed in September. Curry, Agincourt, p. 27, states that the force was sent to meet the duke of Burgundy at Arras on 3 October.

14. Allmand, Henry V, pp. 48–9. It is perhaps significant that the name of the duke of Berry was removed from the 1 September instructions to the ambassadors to treat with John the Fearless, removing any requirement for the English to fight Berry on John’s behalf. See Nicolas (ed.), Privy Council, ii, pp. 21–4.

15. Fears, p. 338. The consensus view on intervention in France in 1411 is specified in Allmand, Henry V, p. 48; Curry, Agincourt, p. 27.

16. In Fears, p. 341, I stated two thousand English archers and eight hundred men-at-arms were at St-Cloud. However, recent research suggests that the expedition consisted...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Author’s Note
• Map of Northern France
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Prologue
• Introduction
• Christmas Day 1414
• January
• February
• March
• April
• May
• June
• July
• August
• September
• October
• November
• December
• Epilogue
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• Notes
• Select Bibliography and List of Abbreviations
• Genealogical Tables