The Hundred Years War - Desmond Seward [63]
Sir Simon Felbrygg, KG, Richard II’s banner-bearer, who served with John of Gaunt at the relief of Brest; and his wife Margaret, daughter of Przimislaus, Duke of Teschen, and sometime maid-of-honour to King Richard’s queen, Anne of Bohemia. Brass of 1416 at Felbrigg, Norfolk.
The English built a ditch and a stockade all round the town, their ships guarding the estuary effectively cutting Harfleur off from any hope of reinforcements or revictualling. They began to mine the walls, but grew discouraged by the French skill at detecting their tunnels and counter-mining. Henry had to rely on his artillery. This included cast-iron cannon twelve feet long and over two feet in calibre, firing stone balls which weighed nearly half a ton and were capable of demolishing the strongest masonry—though sometimes they splintered, producing a primitive but viciously effective shrapnel. The trouble was to get them into position as the Harfleur garrison had guns too, mounted on the walls. The English built earthworks and dug trenches and slowly edged their cannon forward on clumsy wheeled platforms protected by thick wooden screens. They suffered considerably, but eventually positioned their guns which began to batter away at the walls ; often the King was up all night directing them. Sections of the walls began to collapse, crashing to the ground with a terrifying roar. Yet after a month the English had still failed to take what was only a small town, and partly because of the sweltering heat of high summer, partly because many of them had to sleep on marshy ground and partly through drinking bad wine and cider and contaminated water, dysentery and probably malaria broke out. Many died, including the Earls of Arundel, March and Suffolk and the Bishop of Norwich. ‘In this siege many men died of cold in nights and fruit eating; else of stink of carrions,’ says the chronicler Capgrave. But on 17 September a barbican fell to the English.
Inside the town the bombardment had demolished buildings and caused severe casualties, while food was exhausted ; no reply to desperate appeals for help had been received from the Dauphin and his advisers. On 18 September the garrison asked for a truce until 6 October, when they would surrender if they had not been relieved. Henry would only allow them until 22 September. No help came and on that day, a Sunday, Harfleur surrendered. After walking barefoot to the principal church to give thanks, the King expelled the inhabitants : ‘they put out alle the French people both man woman and chylde and stuffed the town with English men.’ The rich bourgeois were sent back to England to be ransomed, while 2,000 of the ‘poorer sort’ had to find their way to Rouen. Only a few of the very poorest were allowed to stay and these had to take an oath of allegiance.
King Henry V (1387-1422)
‘Unto the French the dreadful judgement day
So dreadful will not be as was his sight.’
John, Duke of Bedford,
Regent of France (1389-1435)
‘Give me my steeled coat,
I’ll fight for France.’
King Henry VI (1421-1471)
Pale ashes of the House of Lancaster !
Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood !’
Although Henry had gained a useful new base in France, he had suffered disastrous losses ; about a third of his army were dead, either killed during the siege