Today is the sixth centenary of the death of King Henry V at the chateau of Vincennes outside Paris.
King Henry V
Image: Dorset Life
Whilst the death of the monarch did not bring the English advance in France to an end - that continued until 1429 - inevitably the loss of the man who had motivated and symbolised the invasion reduced impetus and rendered success - by any assessment - less likely. For his son the new nine month old King Henry VI, and for his realms and subjects the future was uncertain, and, ultimately, violent and destructive. The questions hangs in the air as to what might have transpired had King Henry V not died when he did, and as to what he might have achieved had he lived longer.
Ten years ago I posted about the king funeral procession, and the accompanying ceremonial, that conveyed the King’s body to its final resting place in Westminster Abbey in The death and obsequies of King Henry V
Most academic historians who write about the King and his reign take an essentially positive view of him as a ruler and administrator. This view is memorably, dramatically indeed, summed up by K.B.Macfarlane in his 1953 Oxford lecture when he described him as “the greatest man to rule England”.
By contrast there are those academics who tend to dissent from such a view and moreover make no real attempt to conceal their personal dislike for King Henry. Such is their scholarly and personal right, but it goes rather against the grain of contemporary scholarly method and a concern for impartiality. To write a biography does not, of course,require the author to like the subject, though more often than not that would be likely in most cases. Asserting their dislike or distaste for the King as war leader or for his religious attitudes seems to suggest modern “virtue signalling” rather than concern for historical evaluation of a man from six centuries ago. One of these authors disapproval of Henry’s religious fervour suggests more a lack on his part of the necessary historical and theological understanding of the early fifteenth century.
Of course one positive result of differing interpretations is that it fuels the processes of research and interpretation of the period.
As a historian of the times in which King Henry V lived I take the side of those with a more positive view of him. His reign illustrates just what medieval government could achieve with the motivation of an intelligent and determined monarch. Indeed the more one looks at his life and reign the more fascinating and remarkable he is as a ruler and as a man, and the more one is inclined to cite or endorse Macfarlane’s peroration.
3 comments:
When lined up waiting for a battle to start, foot soldiers of the time, and archers especially I think, had a tradition of gathering a pinch of earth and putting it in their mouths.
To us this seems bizarre, and very unhygienic. But they must have had some reason, maybe along the lines of symbolizing a determination to hold their ground and, as it were, "own" the earth on which they stood.
During the long siege of Harfleur the surrounding swampy ground must have become even more unhygienic, practically an open cess pit. So presumably this unwholesome habit worsened the outbreak of dysentery which beset the English army up until the Battle of Agincourt not long after (25 October 1415).
Another outbreak, with a similar cause, may be why Henry V himself died of dysentery a few years later (1422).
John Ramsden
https://highranges.com
P.S. Thinking somne more about the pre-battle habit of eating a pinch of Earth, perhaps another explanation was that it was a form of what might be called "reverse sympathetic magic", the superstitious idea being that anyone who had some local earth within them would be less likely to end up in that earth themselves, i.e. a fatality of the imminent battle!
The Clever Boy understands from what he has read that the custom of placing a fragment of soil in their mouths by soldiers was a recognition of their mortality -“dust to dust, ashes to ashes” - and very much tied in with medieval attitudes to life and death. It can also be seen as a universal trope for men in combat.
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