The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [41]
The importance of Agincourt must not be underestimated. Apart from demoralising the French, it fired the imagination of every Englishman, made Henry V a popular hero, and bolstered the growing nationalism of his subjects. Few would now question the title of Lancaster to the throne, for both Henry and his people believed that God had vindicated his right by granting such a decisive victory. A grateful Parliament happily voted further subsidies to finance the continuation of the war, even though the cost of the campaign had been enormous and had placed some strain on an already overburdened treasury.
The English had suffered very few casualties at Agincourt. The only nobleman killed was Edward, Duke of York, who had commanded the right flank of the army during the battle. He was a big man and very overweight, and it was reported that he either suffocated to death in his armour or suffered a heart attack in the press of the fighting. His corpse was put in a huge cauldron of water and boiled all night, so that the flesh dissolved and the bones could be transported back to England, where they were buried in the collegiate church at Fotheringhay. A handsome monument to York’s memory was later raised on the orders of Elizabeth I, and may still be seen today.
York left no children, and on his death his dukedom fell into abeyance. The attainting of his dead younger brother Cambridge meant that the latter’s four-year-old son, Richard, could not inherit it, although he was able to inherit the entailed estates of the earldom of Cambridge, but not the title. Attainders, however, were often reversed, and there were those who foresaw that this little boy might one day inherit not only the dukedom of York, but also – through his mother – the vast wealth of the Mortimers, for he was also heir to the childless Earl of March, his maternal uncle. For the time being, however, the orphaned Richard, now a royal ward, was being brought up in Yorkshire, at Pontefract Castle and Methley Hall, under the guardianship of a royal retainer, Robert Waterton.
In 1417, Henry V began a well-planned campaign to conquer Normandy, the patrimony of his ancestors. Caen and Lisieux fell to him that year, Falaise, Domfront and Louviers in 1418. The Norman capital, Rouen, capitulated in 1419 after a long and bitter siege, occasioning great celebrations in London. Henry then went on to take Paris, the capital of the kingdom of France. In 1419 the Duke of Burgundy, England’s ally, was murdered by supporters of the Dauphin Charles, heir to Charles VI. The murder drove his son, the new duke, Philip the Good, into an even stronger alliance with the English, which was highly advantageous to King Henry.
As the war dragged on, the King’s reputation for cruelty grew. At the siege of Rouen, his harsh treatment of non-combatants – women, children and old men – resulted in 12,000 people dying from hunger and exposure. A French monk of the Abbey of St Denis accused Henry of abusing ‘the right of kings to punish disobediences’. Anyone bearing arms who refused to surrender to him was put to death, and once Henry had a deserter buried alive before his horrified companions. When Caen fell, 2000 people were rounded up into the market place and slaughtered, their blood running in rivulets through the streets. Henry himself turned a deaf ear to the cries of the doomed citizens until he came upon the corpse of a decapitated woman with a dead baby at her breast. Only then did he call a halt to the killing, although he allowed his men to continue to plunder and rape. As he rode by on his charger, stern and implacable, hordes of terrified people fell on their knees, crying for mercy.
By 1420, Henry was master of Normandy, Brittany, Maine, Champagne and the Duchy of Aquitaine (or Guienne). But already there was in England a backlash of opinion against the war. The King was a hard taskmaster, and as the memory of Agincourt grew dimmer, Englishmen were becoming less enthusiastic about serving under him in France. Some of his soldiers were