September 10, 2024 • 42 mins
Was Henry V the greatest king in English history? Or was he a violent and vindictive monarch overrated by history? Historian Dan Jones joins us to talk about Henry V, the subject of his new biography, available in the United States October 1.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. I am
so thrilled to be back with one of my all
time favorite writers and historians, Dan Jones, who just wrote
an incredible book on Henry the Fifth subhead The Astonishing
Triumph of England's Greatest Warrior King. Dan, thank you so
(00:23):
much for joining me.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, all I can say is I'm so happy to
be here again with one of my all time favorite writers. Astana.
How about that?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Oh God am pleasing. Well before we actually get into
the details of Henry the Fifth's life, which I confess
I did learn about mostly through Shakespeare when I was,
you know, in high school, so that's sort of my
earliest basis of understanding, I do want to ask you.
You say he's England's greatest warrior king. I've seen people
(00:54):
just say he's the greatest king, full stop, full period.
What do you think about Henry the Fifth in terms
of his ranking as a king?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Well, I think in the Middle Ages the later Middle Ages, certainly,
there was like a real clear set of things you
had to do, and it was quite a short set
of things you had to do, if not an easy
set of things you had to do to be like
the ideal of kingship and that of the English kingship,
and that was go and smash the French with a
(01:28):
view to taking their crown away from them, your crown
away from them, as you would have to put it
if you were the king, and make sure that your
subjects are given justice and provided with good rule. Those
are the two that's represented on the Great Seal of England.
King with a sword in hand on one side and
scales of justice on the other. That's the job. But
it's not that easy to do. Henry the Fifth manages
(01:49):
to do it to perfection, maybe even beyond perfection, on
both counts. But then it becomes quite difficult to rank
him in the overall scheme of English and British monarchy,
because is this the sort of king you would want
to succeed, for example, Charles the third, if we went
(02:11):
Charles the third, and then you have Henry the Fifth.
So a king who comes along who's absolutely convinced that
he is the embodiment of justice, that his overriding mission
is to project military might onto the kingdom's neighbors, that
religion and piety are everything that all heretics should be burned.
(02:34):
I don't think it's the sort of king who would
be successful in any age. But if we think about so,
that's I'm obviously being ridiculous. You can't just transport one
king to a different age, and we could then. But
what Henry was so brilliant at was understanding instinctively what
is the job right now, and how do I perform
(02:56):
that job? So the only monarch I can really think
of who does this with such a plom is probably
Elizabeth Ion, who really understand this is what the monarchy
is supposed to be and has this sort of, in
a way self denying approach to it, which is, here
(03:18):
is the job, and I will I will subsume my
person into being this job. J always Elizabeth second did
it a really boring times. The job is to be
a sort of modern an effective modern monarch, is ready
to do as little as possible while looking amazing.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Just being a living mascot that people can project all
of their ideals of the empire onto.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yes a little bit, you know, making trying not to
make any trouble, doing your best to stop your family
from making any trouble really being super willing to open
yet another shopping center or supermarket or hand out another medal.
I mean, that's so, it's I find it a bit
harder to get cited about that kind of monarchy than
I do about the late medieval monarchy.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
It's also less dramatic than Asencore. Elizabeth the Second, for
all of her many accomplishments, never never led English troops
into victory against the French.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
No, but I suppose if they swapped places. I suppose
he would be more effective in the other one's age,
would if we dropped Elizabeth II into the fifteenth century
and gave her the sort of all the training and upbring. Yeah,
she's pretty. She was a pretty competent individual, and Henry likewise.
But you're right, it's more dramatic. I think it's more
dramatic in the late fifteenth century.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Well, I think most of what people know about Henry's
personality obviously they know that, you know, the highlights, possibly
that he you know, he led the charge against the French,
amazing victory at agancorep one hundred years War. But most
of what maybe I'm projecting here, people believe of his
personality I think has been really shaped by Shakespeare. We
(05:01):
see Henry the Fifth as a young man, as sort
of a man enjoying the folly of his youth. But
how accurate sort of is that picture?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Well, the trouble with or maybe not the trouble. The
thing you always have to price in when you're doing
any kind of fifteenth century history in particular English fifteenth
century history in particular, is that you're always looking through
the lens of Shakespeare. And this is certainly true. I
remember when I was writing my book about the Walls
of the Roses years ago that it's the same then,
(05:33):
So Shakespeare, you would never wish away Shakespeare. Shakespeare was
the sort of the greatest genius ever to use the
English language. But his purposes in using the English language
were not to tell accurate historical stories. They were to
great great dramas, riffing off the fabric of English history.
(05:55):
And so he does that with you know, extraordinary effectiveness
in the case of Henry the Fifth. But it requires
some distortion. So if we take this Shakespearean character of
Henry the Fifth across the three plays in which he appears,
Henry fourth one too, and then Henry the Fifth so
we have Prince hal for a long time, and then
(06:15):
we have the King. And so Shakespeare's kind of dramatic
arc for Henry the Fifth is to go from sort
of roisterer playboy surrounded by youthful intimates who are already
inappropriate to the gravitas of office, who sort of sheds
this like a like a snake skin at the moment
of his coronation and just in time and emerges as
(06:37):
a completely different, much more serious character who's who's ready
to assume the burden of kingship and yet still retains
just enough of the common touch to bring his soldiers
along with him. Think that's a really brilliant dramatic arc,
but in order to create it out of the sort
of malleable play doh of history, you have to really
(07:00):
squeeze away at Henry's youth, and you have to take
a couple of fleeting references, really oblique references from sources
pertaining to Henry's younger years, and you have to really
really lean into those to make the character prince. How
you know, the actual historical evidence for this sort of
(07:22):
roistering youth, you know, womanizing, hard drinking, the sort of
person I like to hang around with when I'm out
in the pub. This is this is really at odds
with with most of what we know about the real
young Henry as Prince of Wales. Not that that story
is uninteresting, but it's just not it's not Prince Hal.
(07:45):
Henry in the play Henry the Fifth is drawn somewhat
closer to life. There are there is this sort of
the the ruthlessness, the the the mastery of the vernacular,
you know, the ability to communicate in English in a
way that would touch high and low together, this sense
(08:07):
of camaraderie in the face of battle. There's more to
Henry and Henry the Fifth than there is in historical
times than there is in Prince how But you know,
it's tempting, as it is to judge Shakespeare's historical accuracy.
It is something of a category era. Shakespeare was never
in the business of being judged on historical accuracy. It
(08:29):
was about getting people into theaters to watch a a
great show. Right, it's not the same thing.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
So then let's talk a little bit about historical accuracy.
What was the real Prince Hal like as a young man?
To the best of our understanding.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
He was born in the Gatehouse of Monmouth Castle in
thirteen eighty six, as the firstborn son of the greatest
noble house in the realm, the House of Lancaster. Grandfather
was John of Gaunt. His father was Henry Bollingbrook, who
was at that time a paragon of chivalry, a generous, polite,
(09:08):
good looking, handsome, dashing nobleman, famous across Europe as a
great jouster, famous as as a crusader, famous as a
pilgrim who had actually been to Jerusalem, a great gift giver,
you know. So Henry grows up and he has his
mother married a boone artistic literary musical. So he grows
(09:30):
up as a sort of quite sophisticated, extremely privileged young man.
But his life is thrown into turmoil relatively young when
his father Bolingbrook falls out with Bollingbrook's first cousin, the
King Richard the Second, and is banished, and that famous
scene from probably best known from Shakespeare's play Richard the Second,
the duel at Coventry stopped dramatically by Richard, who then
(09:52):
sends Bollingbrook off into exile. From this point on, Henry
as a youth is somewhat tossed from pillar to post,
he falls under feels briefly under the wing of Richard
the Second himself, and is taken off to Ireland as
part as hostage, but sort of part as apprentice really
(10:13):
of Richard the Second, and is treated very kindly by
Richard the Second. And I believe, and I argue in
my book that Henry is taught a lot, or certainly
gleans a lot from his experience with Richard the Second.
He strikes me as a and we can only infer
this really from his later action, But the young Henry
strikes me as a sponge. He's a great learner. He absorbs,
(10:36):
you know, when he's when he's a captive. When he's
close to Richard the Second, both in his court and
as a captive, he seems to just he seems to
suck up the best things that Richard Richard's kingship has
to offer. There aren't many of them, but the one
that Richard the Second has above almost every other medieval
king is a mastery of spectacle, of performance of majesty.
(10:59):
And we can see later in Henry the fifth life
and Reign that he's watched and he's learned, and he's
able to put that into action. Later, when Henry's father,
Henry Bolingbrook becomes King Henry the Fourth, the young Henry
is put to work. He's taken on military campaign to Scotland.
He sees the logistics of a campaign and he seems
(11:21):
to absorb them very effectively. He's sent off to Ireland
as Prince of Wales to put down the rebellion of
Englendor and he learns very quickly from his mentors there,
people like Hotspur, the future rebel but brilliant military commander.
He learns how to deal with a siege. He learns
how to deploy cannon, he learns good ratios of men
(11:42):
at arms to archers. We have a wonderful letter when
he's about fifteen years old, says Prince Henry written back
to his father who's tasked him with sorting out the
great Welsh rebel and would be Prince of Wales Owain Glendour,
and he says, I've heard this is young Henry. He says,
I've heard Glendour has been putting it around that he
wants a fight. So Dad, I went, I said, if
(12:06):
you want to fight, I'm going to give you a fight.
So I went off into Wales and I looked for him,
but he wasn't there and he couldn't find me. So
I went round his house. I mean he literally went
round the guy's house. He wasn't in, so I burned
his house down and sort of trashed all his lands.
I went to his other house. He wasn't there either.
One of his mates was his mate, said oh, spare me,
spare me, I'll give you five hundred quid. So I
(12:28):
cut his head off and now I'm back. Hope you're well.
Lots of love Henry, and he.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Would have been what about fifteen or sixteen at this.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Time, precisely. Yeah. By the time he's sixteen, he's regarded
by his father as fit to lead the rearguards at
the Battle of Shrewsbury, you know, a massive battle fought
against the rebellious Percy family in which Henry fights and
is terribly wounded. In fact, so he is I think
(12:55):
he learns. He's intelligent. He has a an instinctive taste
for combat and the knightly and military arts. So this
is the the kid that grows up and that's you know,
that's a pretty good set of skills if you're going
to become a warrior king of England.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
So now just to back up a little bit for
context for listeners who might be less familiar with this
period of history, it doesn't sound quite as much like
Henry the fourth his father was as invested in sort
of reigniting the one hundred Years War with France. But
that's something that Henry the Fifth really takes on when
(13:36):
he becomes king. Can you talk a little bit about
that conflict and why Henry the Fifth was so motivated
to fight in France.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah? Absolutely, I mean, let's let's do a really quick
one hundred years War one oh one. So in the
thirteen late thirteen thirties, Henry, this grandfather, King Edward the third,
had the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
To pitch great grandfather.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Great grandfather. Yeah, how the opportunity to pitch his claim
to be the king of France as well as the
King of England. Edward the third, So he says, right,
I'm the rightful King of France and he goes off
to fight the French for this. Now the central question,
this becomes important, very vitally important Henry fifth reign. So
I'll delay us just briefly here does Edward the third
(14:23):
mean what he says or is claiming to be King
of France, just a negotiating tactic to get England a
better deal in its existing French possessions in the southwest
around Bordeaux. Call it Gascony. It's the sort of the
dowdoin areas where lots of English people today have second homes. Hmmm,
good question. Certainly, it's never They never have to deal
(14:44):
with it head on. During Edward the Third's reign, there
are many great successes. The bad Ler Cressie, the bad
la Poitier, they take the French king prisoner. They force
this great deal in thirteen sixty, the Treaty of Bretigny,
where there's a settlement between English and French. Now this
doesn't stop the hundred years War. It rumbles on because
nobody's happy. The English want more territory, the French want
(15:06):
them to have less territory.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
So at this point the English have the hold on
sort of the southwest of what is modern day France.
That's not the quote unquote Kingdom of France, which was
its own.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Not the Kingdom of France, and not other lands that
historically this English dynasty, the Plantagenets had held Normandy for
one the few others a main the terrain Quartu Brittany,
but critically Normandy in the north. So there was still
a reason to keep fighting if you wanted to fight. Now,
(15:38):
under the reign of Richard the Second, that's Edward the
Third's grandson and successor, England has a king who does
not want to fight. Richard the Second has no desire
to fight the hundred Years War whatsoever, and he does
everything he can to to try and force a peace.
This is not particularly popular in England because although there's
(15:59):
a great war weariness, as a sort of a bitterness
towards the levels of taxation that have to be paid, there's,
you know, there's still a sort of sense that the
war is not finished. It hasn't been one. There are
reasons to keep fighting. There are lots of hawks who
think that the fighting should continue. Now. When you get
to the reign of Henry the Fourth and Henry the Fifth,
(16:23):
circumstances in France have changed somewhat. The French are in
the middle of what becomes their own wars at the Roses.
This owes its genesis to the madness of King Charles
the sixth of France who in thirteen ninety two has
a sort of complete psychotic episode and the psycholog subsequent
psychological breakdown. He drifts in and out of madness for
(16:44):
the rest of his life.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
For listeners who just are trying to put these pieces together,
I've done and we've done episodes on Charles the sixth,
the France who goes mad and stabs his men, his
own men while sort of out on a So if
that sounds familiar, that's who we're talking about now.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Right, this is the mad and then he subsequently believes
he's made of glass, he's on fire the whole time,
he doesn't remember his name. He runs about his palaces
smearings and feces on the walls and so on and
so forth. I'm sure you've delved right into that detail
in previous episodes. Dane Er, I can't imagine you skating up.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
I did try to get avoid the feces, but thank
you for reminding me how important that was.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
One of my rules in life is avoid the feces.
But it's not always possible as well. His parenthood has
taught me so anyway. So by the time you get
to Henry the fourth throw Francis dissolving into civil war
between two factions called it the French Wars, the Roses
but Gundians against Armoniacs. Henry the fifth comes to the
throne in fourteen thirteen with the Constitution and the inclination
(17:55):
to go and fight this war. He believes that the French,
that by rights the French crown should be his. He
really buys into his great grandfather Edward the Third's claim.
He has had a robust training as a warrior and
as a leader of men fighting o angl Durd in Wales,
that war eventually to be successful. During his father's waning years,
(18:19):
when his own father, that's Henry the fourth of England,
descends into real physical decrepitude, Henry has run the council,
so he's rolled up his sleeves and learned how to
finance government, how to negotiate, how to lead politically. So
he's ready for the challenge of going and pursuing this
(18:41):
English claim in France. And he's also got the blessed
circumstances if you're the English king of the French being
murderously at one another's throats and hopelessly politically divided, and
if you like therefore the taking. So that's the situation
in fourteen thirteen fourteen and Henry's year of Glory fourteen
(19:01):
fifteen when the Battle of agion Courp takes place.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
And then the Battle of Agincourp obviously is incredibly famous,
especially famous because we get one of Shakespeare's best speeches.
But can you actually talk about what the setup of
that battle was and what Henry did to make it
such a resounding and surprising English victory.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Well, surprising is definitely the right word. This is Henry's
first campaign to France. He's been king for roughly two years.
He's decided he's going to go fight this because he's
been taunted by the Dauphin, one of the sons of
Charles the sixth, and that he has decided he's going
(19:43):
to go and fight, so he raises an army. There
is some doubt in England as to whether this is
going to be a success. On the eve of campaign
there's a rebellion or attempted coup against him, which fails.
So he sails to France with a lot riding on
this he lands near our Fleur and besieges the coastal
(20:04):
city of our Fleur, and that's a long siege which
heavily depletes his army. Disease runs around his camp, but
it's ultimately successful. He takes the city of our Flur,
and this is in itself a great victory. The English
had in previous generations taken Calais, so that was an
English possession. This is going to be another Calais, a
(20:26):
great mercantile city, a very useful sort of beachhead bridgehead
if they want to launch more campaigns. It's a real achievement.
But at the time that the siege of our Flur
is one, Henry seems to think that it's not enough.
Everybody in his high command says, we've lost too many men,
high ranking and low ranking. That's too late in the season.
(20:48):
Let's just cut our loss well, it's culor losses. Let's
be happy with what we've got and go home and regroup.
And Henry says no, He says, we need to do
one more thing now. It's too late in the season
to go besiege another city. He hasn't got enough men, money,
morale is running low because of disease, so he goes
for the sort of cheapest, most effective option. He says,
(21:10):
I'm going to take I'm going to take men with
provisions for about a week, and we're going to run.
We're going to run north from our flur through the
Norman countryside as fast as we can, and we're going
to get to Calais, the other English possession, and we're
going to go home from there. Now, why do that?
That's mad, or so it seems. But part of the
(21:34):
one of the most important tactics in war in this age,
in foreign war in this age, is to prove to
the people of the realm on which you're making war
that their own king can't protect them. And so what
Henry's doing in running north from our flur to Calais
is saying, look at this, I can go wherever I
(21:55):
want in this kingdom, which by the way, is my kingdom,
and your king can't do anything to stop me. It's
the equivalent of just running down the street, knocking on
everyone's door and sort of flicking them the bird as
you run.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
So it's more of a propaganda campaign than a military campaign.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah, and it's going to be cheap and it's going
to be fast, because he reckons he can do it,
and it's the only take provisions for a week. He
thinks he's going to be there in a week, and
at a fast march he should have been. But the
problem is they get stuck. They get stuck trying to cross.
You've got across a lot of rivers as well, and
get around a lot of towns to make this journey.
And they make it sort of half of the way.
(22:33):
And then the French, who have really not got their
act together at Harfleur, finally do get their act semi together,
raise a big army and they enter into a foot race.
They start chasing the English and the two armies collide
on at the end of October fourteen fifteen near Agencole
(22:54):
hasn't called the little village, and Henry is forced to fight.
He doesn't want to fight, but he's ready to fight
if he has to. This wasn't the plan, but it's
you know, there is always going to be a gamble,
and now it's upon him. He's got to do it.
So as in cour is a great test, it's a
great test militarily because the English have a fewer men,
(23:15):
they have archers rather than men at nights dominating their army.
The French have more men. They have knights dominating their army.
That's not so weird. I mean, both sides know what
to expect agancourps because they've seen this before in very
similar circumstances and in a different generation at the Battle
of Crecy undered with the third you'd had a similar
disparaty of numbers the French have been chasing in the
(23:37):
English that they were different compositions of the of the armies.
And Edward's the third one. Howard he won because he'd
used longbows to massacre the French and cause chaos and
then cut them to pieces. Everybody knew on both sides
what the other side's tactics were going to be. None
of this was a surprise. It was just who could
deploy their tactics. The best isn't going to be the
(23:58):
French fresh lots of you know, experienced men among the leadership,
including Marshall Buzuko the sort of most famous night of
the day, or is it going to be the English
exhausted disease, depleted virtually on their knees. This is their
last chance and there are a load of archers.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
So because the numbers, they've got.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
The numbers, they've got the more, they've got the you know,
the ostensibly more dangerous types of troops and cavalry instead
of archers. So this is a real sort of general's victory,
because victory at Agencorep comes down to the who who's
going to pull off their tactics the best. And so
(24:43):
it's Henry's victory. And I'm not saying that, I'm not
I'm not trying to downplay in saying that the the
sort of individual heroism and bravery of everybody who fights
in a battle like that should go without saying. But
this is a general's victory. You've got Henry on the
one side, who is unquestionably the leader of his men
and who's got them into this mess in the first place,
(25:04):
and you've got on the French side a divided leadership.
Nobody quite knows who's in charge. There are people who
don't turn up in time to actually fight the battle.
There's a sort of certain arrogance that comes with being
the favorites in the contest, and although they put their
tactics into effect as planned, they just don't do it
(25:27):
as well as the English, and the English anticipate better
what the French are geting to do they line their
archers up with sharpened stakes in front of them, they
put archers on the wings. They managed to funnel the
French exactly where they want them, and they come down
with longbow shot just as intended. There's no sort of special,
like incredible Napoleon grade like doozy tactic that Henry kind
(25:51):
of comes up with on the hop in the middle
of the battle. They just everybody does what they're supposed
to do, and they don't run away while they're doing it,
so that you know, that is a sign of extremely
competent leadership, even when everyone's back to the walls and
at a loss. Now, at the end of Ashan Corps,
of course, comes the most notorious episode possibly in Henry's career,
(26:14):
which is dramatized by Shakespeare, which is the order to
kill the prisoners. And that's something that historians have argued
about a great.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Deal whether it actually happened or not.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
You mean, not whether it actually happened, but whether it
was the right thing to do.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Oh well, what do you think so? Because it is
an incredibly brutal move on Henry the fifth part, But
maybe brutality was what was called for in the era.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Dana I think instinctively you are a medieval warrior. I
think just from the from the implication of your question. Yes,
there's this moment where the Battle of Aginco has sort
of seems like it's finished in the English of one
friendship been routed, many prisoners have been taken, and the
(26:59):
English ordinary soldiers are very happy about this because they've
taken high ranking, high value prisoners. These guys are going
to be worth their weight in gold as ransoms. Everybody's happy.
And then there's this moment where something it's still not
totally clear because the accounts vary, something happens where it
looks like another contingent of French troops who weren't involved
(27:21):
in the original engagement but who are supposed to be
turn up. They're turning up late. They perhaps they've rounded
up everyone who kind of scattered and ran away on
the French side, and they're coming back to have another go.
That looks like what's about to happen. So Henry, who's
having to deal with this in real time, has to
(27:45):
make a very quick decision, which is what are we
going to do? We might actually have to stand here
and fight again. We can't do that. Whilst every other
one of my troops is sort of clinging on to
a French, isn't it, Because this means we're going to
try and fight with a bunch of French troops in
our midst and so he gives the order to kill them,
(28:07):
kill them. And actually the people, the English, a lot
of them are very unhappy about this. No, I'm not
killing this guy. He's worth his weight in gold. He's
going to be a ransom. And he has to send
around a hit squad of his sort of hardcore ultras
saying kill, kill, kill, kill. So it is brutal, but
it's the middle of a battle. They think it's you know,
this isn't the end of a battle as far as
(28:28):
Henry can see. It's the middle because they're about to
face another wave of French attack. Now, as it happens,
the French don't engage. But in the first write ups,
sort of the first reports of what happens at Asancore,
nobody writes that Henry was completely, you know, unaccountably brutal.
(28:53):
He breached the Geneva convenure and this was such a
terrible you know, what a meani They say, what idiots
the French coming towards the battlefield were to try and
to do this because they provoked the massacre of the prisoners,
they lay all the blame on the French side, and
this includes French chroniclers. So it's I think it's today,
(29:18):
this would be illegal, it would be a war crime.
In the middle of a medieval battle. It's absolutely fair game.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Because how could you be expected to fight off another
wave of French troops if you have French people in
your midst who could be attacking from within.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
It's unchivalrous, it's bad manners. It's absolutely necessary, and as
I say, I think the today it is often leveled
as evidence for the prosecution when people are trying to
say Henry the fifth super overrated King actually cruel, callous,
(29:55):
mean warmonger, nasty piece of work. All that's really saying
is to sort of return to an earlier part of
our conversation, you wouldn't want him to be king today? Well, duh, obviously,
I mean, it's so stupid as to barely be worth saying.
It's pragmatic and it's very unpleasant. But guess what. It's
(30:16):
the early fifteenth century.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
And one piece of evidence that in my understanding, shows
that contemporary people were still excited by everything that he
was doing. Is when Henry does return back to England,
he gets a full heroes welcome.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Of course there's a triumph, you know, and I mean
then in the old fashioned sense, Henry is welcome back
to this rapturous reception, this sort of pageants people, incredible
displays in the streets of London, the likes of which
we haven't seen in my lifetime, except maybe when we
had the twenty twelve London Olympics. It's that sort of
(30:54):
scale of extraordinary procession and Henry is at the midst
of it. But it's very interesting because at this point
Henry isn't kind of Prince charming standing on amid the
ticker tape parade sort of bowing and showing off and
smiling and grinning and high fiving everybody. Far from it,
In fact, quite the opposite. He puts on the most
(31:17):
remarkable performance. He's dressed sombrely, he has a grave and
severe expression on his face. He refuses to show the
crown that was attached to his helmet at Agancoorp, which
had been badly damaged by a blow that could well
have killed him.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Oh wow, which seems like a great pr move.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
None of that. Although he allows the spectacle, the cheering,
the triumph, the pageantry on the part of his people,
he says, and he accepts that it will be directed
towards him as the victor of the battle. He says
that this can only be permitted if the glory is
seen to be coming through him to God, that this
(31:54):
thanks must be given to God, and that Henry himself
is only the instrument of God. He's doing God's will.
He's just, and he's just one sort of He says this.
Actually before he even gets back to London, he puts
his arm around the Duke of Orleans, the young man
who's been captured at the battle and luckily for him
not killed. Who's moping about, and oh dear, this is
(32:17):
such bad news, Henry says, Well, look, it's very obvious
what's happened here. I mean, you French are totally decadent
and God has punished you. And I am God's scourge.
That's who I am. That's what I am, and you
need to understand that. And I don't know, Duke of
Orleon feels much better about about things.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Is that what I would want to hear after after.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
No, not quite, but it does tell you exactly, and
I think Henry means it, and he's certainly when he
comes he comes back through London, he wants to pray. Yes,
he wants to give thanks to God, and he wants
his people to give thanks to God themselves, because a
godly realm is an ordered realm, and this is a
way of showing that this, this, all of this that
they paid for, the realm has paid for and has
(33:01):
been ordered by Him, is more than just a sort
of vanity project of a warmonger king. This is really
what God wants for the realm of England, and he
is merely God's instrument, and that this is a victory
that is to God, and therefore is to be thanks
(33:21):
to be given by the entire realm to God for
what they together have achieved. So in that sense, it's
a far far more effective and subtle piece of politicking
than simply showing off your dented crown and going yeah, look,
it will take more than that to put me down
your bast It's like, it's deep, it's deep understanding of
what the job of kingship is and what it entails,
(33:42):
and that's why he's so great and.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Fast forwarding just a few more years. If we're talking
about the legacy of a king, I do think it's
important to take into account the legacy for the monarchy
that he sets up. And obviously, Henry the Fifth will
die in his mid thirties. He'll die young, so I
don't know how much responsibility we can we can give
to him. But immediately after his death, England will sort
(34:08):
of fall into the devastating wars of the Roses. Is
there anything Henry the Fifth could have done differently, or
anything he did wrong that created those circumstances?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Well, I'll correct you on one point if I may,
which is that it's not immediate, and that's very important.
So Henry the Fifth has achieved something remarkable in fourteen
twenty the Treaty of Trois. He becomes the air and
Regent of the Crown of France. He sort of completes
the video game if you like. That's that, Edward the
third is set up. He's done.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Mary's the princess, a friend, marries the princes, so rescuse
her from the dragon.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
So exactly so, now what, well, now what is a
bit of a problem, because now this is no longer
Henry trying to win back what was taken from the Plantagenets,
or England trying to win back what was taken from
the Plantagenets. This is, on the one hand, you're King
of England and the other you're a belligerent in a
French civil war. And the English parliaments don't want to
pay for a French civil war. So now the whole
(35:09):
game is different. Henry. Within two years, at the age
of thirty five, Henry's dead from dysentery. But it doesn't
all collapse. That's what's amazing about it is it doesn't
all collapse. And one of the reasons it doesn't all
collapse is because Henry has some remarkable lieutenants, his brothers,
(35:29):
the most astonishingly accomplished of which is John, Duke of Bedford,
the third. Henry fourth has four children, Henry, Thomas dukeer Clarence,
John Duke of Bedford, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester. John Duke
of Bedford is a very underappreciated figure in English history.
He holds together the English Kingdom of Northern France as
regent to what becomes the young Henry the sixth or
(35:51):
Henry the First of France if you prefer, until fourteen
thirty five, so that's thirteen years. This thing survives until
the Burgundians their allies, the French allies, make peace with
the Armagnacs and settle the French Civil War, so it
doesn't all fall apart immediately. The problem is, the deep,
like structural political problem is not so much that Henry dies.
(36:15):
It's that he leaves such a young heir. I don't
believe there's much he could have done about that, because
he saved his marriage, if you like, He gets married
very late, compared to his father, who's married in his
teens and has had Henry when he's still into his teens.
Henry marries late. He marries when he's in his thirties.
So although he has a child straight away basically as
(36:36):
soon as possible, Henry the sixth, the young Henry the sixth,
is still less than a year old when his father dies.
And that means it's not so much that you're lacking leadership, because,
as it turns out, John Duke of Bedford and in England, Humphrey,
Duke of Gloucester and several others proved to be pretty
adequate regents, and Henry the fifth will sets up some
(36:58):
structures that the boor or less war during a long,
long the longest minority England ever has. But the real
problem is in France. Until Henry the sixth comes of age,
there is nobody who is authorized to make a settlement
in a lasting settlement in France, They've got to sort
of keep fighting. Had Henry the fifth lived a bit longer,
(37:21):
I believe, I suspect he probably would have settled with
the French and not tried to fight this out until
he'd conquered the whole of France, but would have settled
for some form of partition where he kept Normandy, maybe
the French crown, maybe partition in France above the Loire.
And then he wanted to go off on crusade. He
wanted to go off and seize back Jerusalem. And who
would have bet against.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Him, of course he was guard scourge.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Yeah, well exactly, And what does God want more than
Jerusalem to fall into the hands of the crusaders. I mean,
in the Middle Ages, this is what I mean, not
my belief, but this is this is what they believed.
So but look, that's not how it turns out. So
The big problem is you have to win until Henry
the sixth comes of age in order for somebody to
have the right to make that decision, because anybody who
(38:05):
makes a decision to settle with the French in the
meantime is going to be accused of les magis state
and is likely to have their head chopped off for
approaching the powers of kingship. So it's a big problem.
To what extent can we blame Henry the fifth for
that well? As I say, and it's hard to because
he could have got married earlier, but that then he
(38:26):
had lost a key bargaining ship in his dealings with
the French. He had a kid as soon as possible,
and you can't blame a man for dying of dysentery.
That's an honest death, if you asked me. So, what
we're really saying is is either that, well, he should
never have done any of this at all, that the
aim of conquering France was preposterous, and this is just
(38:47):
the act of a warmonger. But in living memory, in
Henry of this life, everybody knew what happened if you
tried to do if you didn't go and fight the French,
that was called being rich of the second rich of
thecond not wanting to fight the French at all. In fact,
quite the opposite had ended up being deposed and murdered,
and his entire realm had fallen apart, not only because
(39:09):
of that, but that was a big part of it.
So there's no question that you have to do this
as a king. This is how to be a king
in the early fifteenth century. It's just that maybe the well,
nobody quite expected to see the consequences of incredible success
played out.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
I think that's well said at a very nuanced portrayal.
I think of a man who lends himself to people
saying very hyperbolic things about him, you know, terrible king,
amazing king. I think what you've found is a very
nuanced and accurate portrayal, maybe even England's greatest warrior king.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Well, thank you Doane. And that's what I tried to do.
And it's the first time I've ever written a biography alone,
a medieval biography, which is an interesting literary task as
well as a historical task, and finding psychological subtlety within
the bounds of medieval sources is not always easy, but
(40:10):
I think it's been an incredibly rewarding thing to write,
and I'm delighted to be talking to such a subtle
minded historian as you about it.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Oh stop, we never. If you're listening in the United States,
Henry the Fifth comes out October first pre order pick
it up at your local bookstore. But also on my recommendation,
you should absolutely get Dan's previous books. I love The
Wars of the Roses. If you want to know what's
happening after Henry the Fifth, he wrote an incredible book
(40:42):
on the Plantagenet that I think is the book that
anyone who's interested in that period of history should read.
It's just such a smart, readable overview. You do such
incredible work. I'm so happy to.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Know you now you stop it. No, it's a pleasure,
Thank you, thank you, and I always love talking to you.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Noble Blood is a production of iHeart Radio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is hosted by
me Danish Forts, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston,
Hannah Zewick, Courtney Sender, Julia Milani, and Armand Cassam. The
show is edited and produced by Noehmy Griffin and rima
(41:32):
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Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick f More podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. I am
so thrilled to be back with one of my all
time favorite writers and historians, Dan Jones, who just wrote
an incredible book on Henry the Fifth subhead The Astonishing
Triumph of England's Greatest Warrior King. Dan, thank you so
(00:23):
much for joining me.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, all I can say is I'm so happy to
be here again with one of my all time favorite writers. Astana.
How about that?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Oh God am pleasing. Well before we actually get into
the details of Henry the Fifth's life, which I confess
I did learn about mostly through Shakespeare when I was,
you know, in high school, so that's sort of my
earliest basis of understanding, I do want to ask you.
You say he's England's greatest warrior king. I've seen people
(00:54):
just say he's the greatest king, full stop, full period.
What do you think about Henry the Fifth in terms
of his ranking as a king?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Well, I think in the Middle Ages the later Middle Ages, certainly,
there was like a real clear set of things you
had to do, and it was quite a short set
of things you had to do, if not an easy
set of things you had to do to be like
the ideal of kingship and that of the English kingship,
and that was go and smash the French with a
(01:28):
view to taking their crown away from them, your crown
away from them, as you would have to put it
if you were the king, and make sure that your
subjects are given justice and provided with good rule. Those
are the two that's represented on the Great Seal of England.
King with a sword in hand on one side and
scales of justice on the other. That's the job. But
it's not that easy to do. Henry the Fifth manages
(01:49):
to do it to perfection, maybe even beyond perfection, on
both counts. But then it becomes quite difficult to rank
him in the overall scheme of English and British monarchy,
because is this the sort of king you would want
to succeed, for example, Charles the third, if we went
(02:11):
Charles the third, and then you have Henry the Fifth.
So a king who comes along who's absolutely convinced that
he is the embodiment of justice, that his overriding mission
is to project military might onto the kingdom's neighbors, that
religion and piety are everything that all heretics should be burned.
(02:34):
I don't think it's the sort of king who would
be successful in any age. But if we think about so,
that's I'm obviously being ridiculous. You can't just transport one
king to a different age, and we could then. But
what Henry was so brilliant at was understanding instinctively what
is the job right now, and how do I perform
(02:56):
that job? So the only monarch I can really think
of who does this with such a plom is probably
Elizabeth Ion, who really understand this is what the monarchy
is supposed to be and has this sort of, in
a way self denying approach to it, which is, here
(03:18):
is the job, and I will I will subsume my
person into being this job. J always Elizabeth second did
it a really boring times. The job is to be
a sort of modern an effective modern monarch, is ready
to do as little as possible while looking amazing.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Just being a living mascot that people can project all
of their ideals of the empire onto.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yes a little bit, you know, making trying not to
make any trouble, doing your best to stop your family
from making any trouble really being super willing to open
yet another shopping center or supermarket or hand out another medal.
I mean, that's so, it's I find it a bit
harder to get cited about that kind of monarchy than
I do about the late medieval monarchy.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
It's also less dramatic than Asencore. Elizabeth the Second, for
all of her many accomplishments, never never led English troops
into victory against the French.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
No, but I suppose if they swapped places. I suppose
he would be more effective in the other one's age,
would if we dropped Elizabeth II into the fifteenth century
and gave her the sort of all the training and upbring. Yeah,
she's pretty. She was a pretty competent individual, and Henry likewise.
But you're right, it's more dramatic. I think it's more
dramatic in the late fifteenth century.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Well, I think most of what people know about Henry's
personality obviously they know that, you know, the highlights, possibly
that he you know, he led the charge against the French,
amazing victory at agancorep one hundred years War. But most
of what maybe I'm projecting here, people believe of his
personality I think has been really shaped by Shakespeare. We
(05:01):
see Henry the Fifth as a young man, as sort
of a man enjoying the folly of his youth. But
how accurate sort of is that picture?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Well, the trouble with or maybe not the trouble. The
thing you always have to price in when you're doing
any kind of fifteenth century history in particular English fifteenth
century history in particular, is that you're always looking through
the lens of Shakespeare. And this is certainly true. I
remember when I was writing my book about the Walls
of the Roses years ago that it's the same then,
(05:33):
So Shakespeare, you would never wish away Shakespeare. Shakespeare was
the sort of the greatest genius ever to use the
English language. But his purposes in using the English language
were not to tell accurate historical stories. They were to
great great dramas, riffing off the fabric of English history.
(05:55):
And so he does that with you know, extraordinary effectiveness
in the case of Henry the Fifth. But it requires
some distortion. So if we take this Shakespearean character of
Henry the Fifth across the three plays in which he appears,
Henry fourth one too, and then Henry the Fifth so
we have Prince hal for a long time, and then
(06:15):
we have the King. And so Shakespeare's kind of dramatic
arc for Henry the Fifth is to go from sort
of roisterer playboy surrounded by youthful intimates who are already
inappropriate to the gravitas of office, who sort of sheds
this like a like a snake skin at the moment
of his coronation and just in time and emerges as
(06:37):
a completely different, much more serious character who's who's ready
to assume the burden of kingship and yet still retains
just enough of the common touch to bring his soldiers
along with him. Think that's a really brilliant dramatic arc,
but in order to create it out of the sort
of malleable play doh of history, you have to really
(07:00):
squeeze away at Henry's youth, and you have to take
a couple of fleeting references, really oblique references from sources
pertaining to Henry's younger years, and you have to really
really lean into those to make the character prince. How
you know, the actual historical evidence for this sort of
(07:22):
roistering youth, you know, womanizing, hard drinking, the sort of
person I like to hang around with when I'm out
in the pub. This is this is really at odds
with with most of what we know about the real
young Henry as Prince of Wales. Not that that story
is uninteresting, but it's just not it's not Prince Hal.
(07:45):
Henry in the play Henry the Fifth is drawn somewhat
closer to life. There are there is this sort of
the the ruthlessness, the the the mastery of the vernacular,
you know, the ability to communicate in English in a
way that would touch high and low together, this sense
(08:07):
of camaraderie in the face of battle. There's more to
Henry and Henry the Fifth than there is in historical
times than there is in Prince how But you know,
it's tempting, as it is to judge Shakespeare's historical accuracy.
It is something of a category era. Shakespeare was never
in the business of being judged on historical accuracy. It
(08:29):
was about getting people into theaters to watch a a
great show. Right, it's not the same thing.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
So then let's talk a little bit about historical accuracy.
What was the real Prince Hal like as a young man?
To the best of our understanding.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
He was born in the Gatehouse of Monmouth Castle in
thirteen eighty six, as the firstborn son of the greatest
noble house in the realm, the House of Lancaster. Grandfather
was John of Gaunt. His father was Henry Bollingbrook, who
was at that time a paragon of chivalry, a generous, polite,
(09:08):
good looking, handsome, dashing nobleman, famous across Europe as a
great jouster, famous as as a crusader, famous as a
pilgrim who had actually been to Jerusalem, a great gift giver,
you know. So Henry grows up and he has his
mother married a boone artistic literary musical. So he grows
(09:30):
up as a sort of quite sophisticated, extremely privileged young man.
But his life is thrown into turmoil relatively young when
his father Bolingbrook falls out with Bollingbrook's first cousin, the
King Richard the Second, and is banished, and that famous
scene from probably best known from Shakespeare's play Richard the Second,
the duel at Coventry stopped dramatically by Richard, who then
(09:52):
sends Bollingbrook off into exile. From this point on, Henry
as a youth is somewhat tossed from pillar to post,
he falls under feels briefly under the wing of Richard
the Second himself, and is taken off to Ireland as
part as hostage, but sort of part as apprentice really
(10:13):
of Richard the Second, and is treated very kindly by
Richard the Second. And I believe, and I argue in
my book that Henry is taught a lot, or certainly
gleans a lot from his experience with Richard the Second.
He strikes me as a and we can only infer
this really from his later action, But the young Henry
strikes me as a sponge. He's a great learner. He absorbs,
(10:36):
you know, when he's when he's a captive. When he's
close to Richard the Second, both in his court and
as a captive, he seems to just he seems to
suck up the best things that Richard Richard's kingship has
to offer. There aren't many of them, but the one
that Richard the Second has above almost every other medieval
king is a mastery of spectacle, of performance of majesty.
(10:59):
And we can see later in Henry the fifth life
and Reign that he's watched and he's learned, and he's
able to put that into action. Later, when Henry's father,
Henry Bolingbrook becomes King Henry the Fourth, the young Henry
is put to work. He's taken on military campaign to Scotland.
He sees the logistics of a campaign and he seems
(11:21):
to absorb them very effectively. He's sent off to Ireland
as Prince of Wales to put down the rebellion of
Englendor and he learns very quickly from his mentors there,
people like Hotspur, the future rebel but brilliant military commander.
He learns how to deal with a siege. He learns
how to deploy cannon, he learns good ratios of men
(11:42):
at arms to archers. We have a wonderful letter when
he's about fifteen years old, says Prince Henry written back
to his father who's tasked him with sorting out the
great Welsh rebel and would be Prince of Wales Owain Glendour,
and he says, I've heard this is young Henry. He says,
I've heard Glendour has been putting it around that he
wants a fight. So Dad, I went, I said, if
(12:06):
you want to fight, I'm going to give you a fight.
So I went off into Wales and I looked for him,
but he wasn't there and he couldn't find me. So
I went round his house. I mean he literally went
round the guy's house. He wasn't in, so I burned
his house down and sort of trashed all his lands.
I went to his other house. He wasn't there either.
One of his mates was his mate, said oh, spare me,
spare me, I'll give you five hundred quid. So I
(12:28):
cut his head off and now I'm back. Hope you're well.
Lots of love Henry, and he.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Would have been what about fifteen or sixteen at this.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Time, precisely. Yeah. By the time he's sixteen, he's regarded
by his father as fit to lead the rearguards at
the Battle of Shrewsbury, you know, a massive battle fought
against the rebellious Percy family in which Henry fights and
is terribly wounded. In fact, so he is I think
(12:55):
he learns. He's intelligent. He has a an instinctive taste
for combat and the knightly and military arts. So this
is the the kid that grows up and that's you know,
that's a pretty good set of skills if you're going
to become a warrior king of England.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
So now just to back up a little bit for
context for listeners who might be less familiar with this
period of history, it doesn't sound quite as much like
Henry the fourth his father was as invested in sort
of reigniting the one hundred Years War with France. But
that's something that Henry the Fifth really takes on when
(13:36):
he becomes king. Can you talk a little bit about
that conflict and why Henry the Fifth was so motivated
to fight in France.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah? Absolutely, I mean, let's let's do a really quick
one hundred years War one oh one. So in the
thirteen late thirteen thirties, Henry, this grandfather, King Edward the third,
had the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
To pitch great grandfather.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Great grandfather. Yeah, how the opportunity to pitch his claim
to be the king of France as well as the
King of England. Edward the third, So he says, right,
I'm the rightful King of France and he goes off
to fight the French for this. Now the central question,
this becomes important, very vitally important Henry fifth reign. So
I'll delay us just briefly here does Edward the third
(14:23):
mean what he says or is claiming to be King
of France, just a negotiating tactic to get England a
better deal in its existing French possessions in the southwest
around Bordeaux. Call it Gascony. It's the sort of the
dowdoin areas where lots of English people today have second homes. Hmmm,
good question. Certainly, it's never They never have to deal
(14:44):
with it head on. During Edward the Third's reign, there
are many great successes. The bad Ler Cressie, the bad
la Poitier, they take the French king prisoner. They force
this great deal in thirteen sixty, the Treaty of Bretigny,
where there's a settlement between English and French. Now this
doesn't stop the hundred years War. It rumbles on because
nobody's happy. The English want more territory, the French want
(15:06):
them to have less territory.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
So at this point the English have the hold on
sort of the southwest of what is modern day France.
That's not the quote unquote Kingdom of France, which was
its own.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Not the Kingdom of France, and not other lands that
historically this English dynasty, the Plantagenets had held Normandy for
one the few others a main the terrain Quartu Brittany,
but critically Normandy in the north. So there was still
a reason to keep fighting if you wanted to fight. Now,
(15:38):
under the reign of Richard the Second, that's Edward the
Third's grandson and successor, England has a king who does
not want to fight. Richard the Second has no desire
to fight the hundred Years War whatsoever, and he does
everything he can to to try and force a peace.
This is not particularly popular in England because although there's
(15:59):
a great war weariness, as a sort of a bitterness
towards the levels of taxation that have to be paid, there's,
you know, there's still a sort of sense that the
war is not finished. It hasn't been one. There are
reasons to keep fighting. There are lots of hawks who
think that the fighting should continue. Now. When you get
to the reign of Henry the Fourth and Henry the Fifth,
(16:23):
circumstances in France have changed somewhat. The French are in
the middle of what becomes their own wars at the Roses.
This owes its genesis to the madness of King Charles
the sixth of France who in thirteen ninety two has
a sort of complete psychotic episode and the psycholog subsequent
psychological breakdown. He drifts in and out of madness for
(16:44):
the rest of his life.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
For listeners who just are trying to put these pieces together,
I've done and we've done episodes on Charles the sixth,
the France who goes mad and stabs his men, his
own men while sort of out on a So if
that sounds familiar, that's who we're talking about now.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Right, this is the mad and then he subsequently believes
he's made of glass, he's on fire the whole time,
he doesn't remember his name. He runs about his palaces
smearings and feces on the walls and so on and
so forth. I'm sure you've delved right into that detail
in previous episodes. Dane Er, I can't imagine you skating up.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
I did try to get avoid the feces, but thank
you for reminding me how important that was.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
One of my rules in life is avoid the feces.
But it's not always possible as well. His parenthood has
taught me so anyway. So by the time you get
to Henry the fourth throw Francis dissolving into civil war
between two factions called it the French Wars, the Roses
but Gundians against Armoniacs. Henry the fifth comes to the
throne in fourteen thirteen with the Constitution and the inclination
(17:55):
to go and fight this war. He believes that the French,
that by rights the French crown should be his. He
really buys into his great grandfather Edward the Third's claim.
He has had a robust training as a warrior and
as a leader of men fighting o angl Durd in Wales,
that war eventually to be successful. During his father's waning years,
(18:19):
when his own father, that's Henry the fourth of England,
descends into real physical decrepitude, Henry has run the council,
so he's rolled up his sleeves and learned how to
finance government, how to negotiate, how to lead politically. So
he's ready for the challenge of going and pursuing this
(18:41):
English claim in France. And he's also got the blessed
circumstances if you're the English king of the French being
murderously at one another's throats and hopelessly politically divided, and
if you like therefore the taking. So that's the situation
in fourteen thirteen fourteen and Henry's year of Glory fourteen
(19:01):
fifteen when the Battle of agion Courp takes place.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
And then the Battle of Agincourp obviously is incredibly famous,
especially famous because we get one of Shakespeare's best speeches.
But can you actually talk about what the setup of
that battle was and what Henry did to make it
such a resounding and surprising English victory.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Well, surprising is definitely the right word. This is Henry's
first campaign to France. He's been king for roughly two years.
He's decided he's going to go fight this because he's
been taunted by the Dauphin, one of the sons of
Charles the sixth, and that he has decided he's going
(19:43):
to go and fight, so he raises an army. There
is some doubt in England as to whether this is
going to be a success. On the eve of campaign
there's a rebellion or attempted coup against him, which fails.
So he sails to France with a lot riding on
this he lands near our Fleur and besieges the coastal
(20:04):
city of our Fleur, and that's a long siege which
heavily depletes his army. Disease runs around his camp, but
it's ultimately successful. He takes the city of our Flur,
and this is in itself a great victory. The English
had in previous generations taken Calais, so that was an
English possession. This is going to be another Calais, a
(20:26):
great mercantile city, a very useful sort of beachhead bridgehead
if they want to launch more campaigns. It's a real achievement.
But at the time that the siege of our Flur
is one, Henry seems to think that it's not enough.
Everybody in his high command says, we've lost too many men,
high ranking and low ranking. That's too late in the season.
(20:48):
Let's just cut our loss well, it's culor losses. Let's
be happy with what we've got and go home and regroup.
And Henry says no, He says, we need to do
one more thing now. It's too late in the season
to go besiege another city. He hasn't got enough men, money,
morale is running low because of disease, so he goes
for the sort of cheapest, most effective option. He says,
(21:10):
I'm going to take I'm going to take men with
provisions for about a week, and we're going to run.
We're going to run north from our flur through the
Norman countryside as fast as we can, and we're going
to get to Calais, the other English possession, and we're
going to go home from there. Now, why do that?
That's mad, or so it seems. But part of the
(21:34):
one of the most important tactics in war in this age,
in foreign war in this age, is to prove to
the people of the realm on which you're making war
that their own king can't protect them. And so what
Henry's doing in running north from our flur to Calais
is saying, look at this, I can go wherever I
(21:55):
want in this kingdom, which by the way, is my kingdom,
and your king can't do anything to stop me. It's
the equivalent of just running down the street, knocking on
everyone's door and sort of flicking them the bird as
you run.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
So it's more of a propaganda campaign than a military campaign.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah, and it's going to be cheap and it's going
to be fast, because he reckons he can do it,
and it's the only take provisions for a week. He
thinks he's going to be there in a week, and
at a fast march he should have been. But the
problem is they get stuck. They get stuck trying to cross.
You've got across a lot of rivers as well, and
get around a lot of towns to make this journey.
And they make it sort of half of the way.
(22:33):
And then the French, who have really not got their
act together at Harfleur, finally do get their act semi together,
raise a big army and they enter into a foot race.
They start chasing the English and the two armies collide
on at the end of October fourteen fifteen near Agencole
(22:54):
hasn't called the little village, and Henry is forced to fight.
He doesn't want to fight, but he's ready to fight
if he has to. This wasn't the plan, but it's
you know, there is always going to be a gamble,
and now it's upon him. He's got to do it.
So as in cour is a great test, it's a
great test militarily because the English have a fewer men,
(23:15):
they have archers rather than men at nights dominating their army.
The French have more men. They have knights dominating their army.
That's not so weird. I mean, both sides know what
to expect agancourps because they've seen this before in very
similar circumstances and in a different generation at the Battle
of Crecy undered with the third you'd had a similar
disparaty of numbers the French have been chasing in the
(23:37):
English that they were different compositions of the of the armies.
And Edward's the third one. Howard he won because he'd
used longbows to massacre the French and cause chaos and
then cut them to pieces. Everybody knew on both sides
what the other side's tactics were going to be. None
of this was a surprise. It was just who could
deploy their tactics. The best isn't going to be the
(23:58):
French fresh lots of you know, experienced men among the leadership,
including Marshall Buzuko the sort of most famous night of
the day, or is it going to be the English
exhausted disease, depleted virtually on their knees. This is their
last chance and there are a load of archers.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
So because the numbers, they've got.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
The numbers, they've got the more, they've got the you know,
the ostensibly more dangerous types of troops and cavalry instead
of archers. So this is a real sort of general's victory,
because victory at Agencorep comes down to the who who's
going to pull off their tactics the best. And so
(24:43):
it's Henry's victory. And I'm not saying that, I'm not
I'm not trying to downplay in saying that the the
sort of individual heroism and bravery of everybody who fights
in a battle like that should go without saying. But
this is a general's victory. You've got Henry on the
one side, who is unquestionably the leader of his men
and who's got them into this mess in the first place,
(25:04):
and you've got on the French side a divided leadership.
Nobody quite knows who's in charge. There are people who
don't turn up in time to actually fight the battle.
There's a sort of certain arrogance that comes with being
the favorites in the contest, and although they put their
tactics into effect as planned, they just don't do it
(25:27):
as well as the English, and the English anticipate better
what the French are geting to do they line their
archers up with sharpened stakes in front of them, they
put archers on the wings. They managed to funnel the
French exactly where they want them, and they come down
with longbow shot just as intended. There's no sort of special,
like incredible Napoleon grade like doozy tactic that Henry kind
(25:51):
of comes up with on the hop in the middle
of the battle. They just everybody does what they're supposed
to do, and they don't run away while they're doing it,
so that you know, that is a sign of extremely
competent leadership, even when everyone's back to the walls and
at a loss. Now, at the end of Ashan Corps,
of course, comes the most notorious episode possibly in Henry's career,
(26:14):
which is dramatized by Shakespeare, which is the order to
kill the prisoners. And that's something that historians have argued
about a great.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Deal whether it actually happened or not.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
You mean, not whether it actually happened, but whether it
was the right thing to do.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Oh well, what do you think so? Because it is
an incredibly brutal move on Henry the fifth part, But
maybe brutality was what was called for in the era.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Dana I think instinctively you are a medieval warrior. I
think just from the from the implication of your question. Yes,
there's this moment where the Battle of Aginco has sort
of seems like it's finished in the English of one
friendship been routed, many prisoners have been taken, and the
(26:59):
English ordinary soldiers are very happy about this because they've
taken high ranking, high value prisoners. These guys are going
to be worth their weight in gold as ransoms. Everybody's happy.
And then there's this moment where something it's still not
totally clear because the accounts vary, something happens where it
looks like another contingent of French troops who weren't involved
(27:21):
in the original engagement but who are supposed to be
turn up. They're turning up late. They perhaps they've rounded
up everyone who kind of scattered and ran away on
the French side, and they're coming back to have another go.
That looks like what's about to happen. So Henry, who's
having to deal with this in real time, has to
(27:45):
make a very quick decision, which is what are we
going to do? We might actually have to stand here
and fight again. We can't do that. Whilst every other
one of my troops is sort of clinging on to
a French, isn't it, Because this means we're going to
try and fight with a bunch of French troops in
our midst and so he gives the order to kill them,
(28:07):
kill them. And actually the people, the English, a lot
of them are very unhappy about this. No, I'm not
killing this guy. He's worth his weight in gold. He's
going to be a ransom. And he has to send
around a hit squad of his sort of hardcore ultras
saying kill, kill, kill, kill. So it is brutal, but
it's the middle of a battle. They think it's you know,
this isn't the end of a battle as far as
(28:28):
Henry can see. It's the middle because they're about to
face another wave of French attack. Now, as it happens,
the French don't engage. But in the first write ups,
sort of the first reports of what happens at Asancore,
nobody writes that Henry was completely, you know, unaccountably brutal.
(28:53):
He breached the Geneva convenure and this was such a
terrible you know, what a meani They say, what idiots
the French coming towards the battlefield were to try and
to do this because they provoked the massacre of the prisoners,
they lay all the blame on the French side, and
this includes French chroniclers. So it's I think it's today,
(29:18):
this would be illegal, it would be a war crime.
In the middle of a medieval battle. It's absolutely fair game.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Because how could you be expected to fight off another
wave of French troops if you have French people in
your midst who could be attacking from within.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
It's unchivalrous, it's bad manners. It's absolutely necessary, and as
I say, I think the today it is often leveled
as evidence for the prosecution when people are trying to
say Henry the fifth super overrated King actually cruel, callous,
(29:55):
mean warmonger, nasty piece of work. All that's really saying
is to sort of return to an earlier part of
our conversation, you wouldn't want him to be king today? Well, duh, obviously,
I mean, it's so stupid as to barely be worth saying.
It's pragmatic and it's very unpleasant. But guess what. It's
(30:16):
the early fifteenth century.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
And one piece of evidence that in my understanding, shows
that contemporary people were still excited by everything that he
was doing. Is when Henry does return back to England,
he gets a full heroes welcome.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Of course there's a triumph, you know, and I mean
then in the old fashioned sense, Henry is welcome back
to this rapturous reception, this sort of pageants people, incredible
displays in the streets of London, the likes of which
we haven't seen in my lifetime, except maybe when we
had the twenty twelve London Olympics. It's that sort of
(30:54):
scale of extraordinary procession and Henry is at the midst
of it. But it's very interesting because at this point
Henry isn't kind of Prince charming standing on amid the
ticker tape parade sort of bowing and showing off and
smiling and grinning and high fiving everybody. Far from it,
In fact, quite the opposite. He puts on the most
(31:17):
remarkable performance. He's dressed sombrely, he has a grave and
severe expression on his face. He refuses to show the
crown that was attached to his helmet at Agancoorp, which
had been badly damaged by a blow that could well
have killed him.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Oh wow, which seems like a great pr move.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
None of that. Although he allows the spectacle, the cheering,
the triumph, the pageantry on the part of his people,
he says, and he accepts that it will be directed
towards him as the victor of the battle. He says
that this can only be permitted if the glory is
seen to be coming through him to God, that this
(31:54):
thanks must be given to God, and that Henry himself
is only the instrument of God. He's doing God's will.
He's just, and he's just one sort of He says this.
Actually before he even gets back to London, he puts
his arm around the Duke of Orleans, the young man
who's been captured at the battle and luckily for him
not killed. Who's moping about, and oh dear, this is
(32:17):
such bad news, Henry says, Well, look, it's very obvious
what's happened here. I mean, you French are totally decadent
and God has punished you. And I am God's scourge.
That's who I am. That's what I am, and you
need to understand that. And I don't know, Duke of
Orleon feels much better about about things.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Is that what I would want to hear after after.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
No, not quite, but it does tell you exactly, and
I think Henry means it, and he's certainly when he
comes he comes back through London, he wants to pray. Yes,
he wants to give thanks to God, and he wants
his people to give thanks to God themselves, because a
godly realm is an ordered realm, and this is a
way of showing that this, this, all of this that
they paid for, the realm has paid for and has
(33:01):
been ordered by Him, is more than just a sort
of vanity project of a warmonger king. This is really
what God wants for the realm of England, and he
is merely God's instrument, and that this is a victory
that is to God, and therefore is to be thanks
(33:21):
to be given by the entire realm to God for
what they together have achieved. So in that sense, it's
a far far more effective and subtle piece of politicking
than simply showing off your dented crown and going yeah, look,
it will take more than that to put me down
your bast It's like, it's deep, it's deep understanding of
what the job of kingship is and what it entails,
(33:42):
and that's why he's so great and.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Fast forwarding just a few more years. If we're talking
about the legacy of a king, I do think it's
important to take into account the legacy for the monarchy
that he sets up. And obviously, Henry the Fifth will
die in his mid thirties. He'll die young, so I
don't know how much responsibility we can we can give
to him. But immediately after his death, England will sort
(34:08):
of fall into the devastating wars of the Roses. Is
there anything Henry the Fifth could have done differently, or
anything he did wrong that created those circumstances?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Well, I'll correct you on one point if I may,
which is that it's not immediate, and that's very important.
So Henry the Fifth has achieved something remarkable in fourteen
twenty the Treaty of Trois. He becomes the air and
Regent of the Crown of France. He sort of completes
the video game if you like. That's that, Edward the
third is set up. He's done.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Mary's the princess, a friend, marries the princes, so rescuse
her from the dragon.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
So exactly so, now what, well, now what is a
bit of a problem, because now this is no longer
Henry trying to win back what was taken from the Plantagenets,
or England trying to win back what was taken from
the Plantagenets. This is, on the one hand, you're King
of England and the other you're a belligerent in a
French civil war. And the English parliaments don't want to
pay for a French civil war. So now the whole
(35:09):
game is different. Henry. Within two years, at the age
of thirty five, Henry's dead from dysentery. But it doesn't
all collapse. That's what's amazing about it is it doesn't
all collapse. And one of the reasons it doesn't all
collapse is because Henry has some remarkable lieutenants, his brothers,
(35:29):
the most astonishingly accomplished of which is John, Duke of Bedford,
the third. Henry fourth has four children, Henry, Thomas dukeer Clarence,
John Duke of Bedford, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester. John Duke
of Bedford is a very underappreciated figure in English history.
He holds together the English Kingdom of Northern France as
regent to what becomes the young Henry the sixth or
(35:51):
Henry the First of France if you prefer, until fourteen
thirty five, so that's thirteen years. This thing survives until
the Burgundians their allies, the French allies, make peace with
the Armagnacs and settle the French Civil War, so it
doesn't all fall apart immediately. The problem is, the deep,
like structural political problem is not so much that Henry dies.
(36:15):
It's that he leaves such a young heir. I don't
believe there's much he could have done about that, because
he saved his marriage, if you like, He gets married
very late, compared to his father, who's married in his
teens and has had Henry when he's still into his teens.
Henry marries late. He marries when he's in his thirties.
So although he has a child straight away basically as
(36:36):
soon as possible, Henry the sixth, the young Henry the sixth,
is still less than a year old when his father dies.
And that means it's not so much that you're lacking leadership, because,
as it turns out, John Duke of Bedford and in England, Humphrey,
Duke of Gloucester and several others proved to be pretty
adequate regents, and Henry the fifth will sets up some
(36:58):
structures that the boor or less war during a long,
long the longest minority England ever has. But the real
problem is in France. Until Henry the sixth comes of age,
there is nobody who is authorized to make a settlement
in a lasting settlement in France, They've got to sort
of keep fighting. Had Henry the fifth lived a bit longer,
(37:21):
I believe, I suspect he probably would have settled with
the French and not tried to fight this out until
he'd conquered the whole of France, but would have settled
for some form of partition where he kept Normandy, maybe
the French crown, maybe partition in France above the Loire.
And then he wanted to go off on crusade. He
wanted to go off and seize back Jerusalem. And who
would have bet against.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Him, of course he was guard scourge.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Yeah, well exactly, And what does God want more than
Jerusalem to fall into the hands of the crusaders. I mean,
in the Middle Ages, this is what I mean, not
my belief, but this is this is what they believed.
So but look, that's not how it turns out. So
The big problem is you have to win until Henry
the sixth comes of age in order for somebody to
have the right to make that decision, because anybody who
(38:05):
makes a decision to settle with the French in the
meantime is going to be accused of les magis state
and is likely to have their head chopped off for
approaching the powers of kingship. So it's a big problem.
To what extent can we blame Henry the fifth for
that well? As I say, and it's hard to because
he could have got married earlier, but that then he
(38:26):
had lost a key bargaining ship in his dealings with
the French. He had a kid as soon as possible,
and you can't blame a man for dying of dysentery.
That's an honest death, if you asked me. So, what
we're really saying is is either that, well, he should
never have done any of this at all, that the
aim of conquering France was preposterous, and this is just
(38:47):
the act of a warmonger. But in living memory, in
Henry of this life, everybody knew what happened if you
tried to do if you didn't go and fight the French,
that was called being rich of the second rich of
thecond not wanting to fight the French at all. In fact,
quite the opposite had ended up being deposed and murdered,
and his entire realm had fallen apart, not only because
(39:09):
of that, but that was a big part of it.
So there's no question that you have to do this
as a king. This is how to be a king
in the early fifteenth century. It's just that maybe the well,
nobody quite expected to see the consequences of incredible success
played out.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
I think that's well said at a very nuanced portrayal.
I think of a man who lends himself to people
saying very hyperbolic things about him, you know, terrible king,
amazing king. I think what you've found is a very
nuanced and accurate portrayal, maybe even England's greatest warrior king.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Well, thank you Doane. And that's what I tried to do.
And it's the first time I've ever written a biography alone,
a medieval biography, which is an interesting literary task as
well as a historical task, and finding psychological subtlety within
the bounds of medieval sources is not always easy, but
(40:10):
I think it's been an incredibly rewarding thing to write,
and I'm delighted to be talking to such a subtle
minded historian as you about it.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Oh stop, we never. If you're listening in the United States,
Henry the Fifth comes out October first pre order pick
it up at your local bookstore. But also on my recommendation,
you should absolutely get Dan's previous books. I love The
Wars of the Roses. If you want to know what's
happening after Henry the Fifth, he wrote an incredible book
(40:42):
on the Plantagenet that I think is the book that
anyone who's interested in that period of history should read.
It's just such a smart, readable overview. You do such
incredible work. I'm so happy to.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Know you now you stop it. No, it's a pleasure,
Thank you, thank you, and I always love talking to you.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Noble Blood is a production of iHeart Radio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is hosted by
me Danish Forts, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston,
Hannah Zewick, Courtney Sender, Julia Milani, and Armand Cassam. The
show is edited and produced by Noehmy Griffin and rima
(41:32):
Il Kaali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers
Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick f More podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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