Pod Insights Gone Medieval After Agincourt: Henry V's French Campaigns About this episode What happened after the Battle of Agincourt? How did Henry V's victory turn into a seven-year struggle of sieges, diplomacy, ambition, murder and missed destiny?
Matt Lewis is joined by W. B. Bartlett to explore a brutal and often overlooked phase of the Hundred Years’ War and why the post-Agincourt years matter so much to medieval, English and French history.
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The Battle of Agincourt
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Henry V with Dan Jones
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Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/0qRYhiqBCU06i4uCdJG1nM
Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.
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0:01 Matt Lewis? From long-lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places, to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on History Hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand-new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.
0:40 Matt Lewis? Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and latest groundbreaking research, from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades. We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots, and murders, to find the stories, big and small, that tell us how we got here. Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval.
1:19 Matt Lewis? Imagine finding yourself standing in a muddy French field in October 1415. Exhausted, soaked, adrenaline only just beginning to wear off as your limbs start to shake. Your senses bombarded by sounds, smells, and sights you've never experienced before. Death surrounds you, but somehow you're still alive. You survived what looked only a few hours ago like a hopeless situation. One name is on the lips of everyone around you. King Henry V has done it. He saved you and defeated the vast French host. Despite your fatigue, you take up the call with your comrades: for God and King Harry.
2:06 Matt Lewis? I wonder what those soldiers in the aftermath of the Battle of Agincourt would have felt if they'd known that far from being the end, this was only the beginning of almost half a century of grinding, debilitating war that England would ultimately lose. Would you still cheer young Hal on? Big moments in history often feel like the end of a story, the culmination of something. The Battle of Agincourt in 1415 has become such a moment, the glory of an unexpected victory stands out amid the complex tangle of events surrounding it. But history never stops. My guest today has written a book entitled After Agincourt, which picks up at the legendary victory and examines its aftermath and the campaigns
2:49 Matt Lewis? that followed it. What did Henry V learn? And what was he really trying to achieve? These are just a couple of questions I'll be putting to W B Bartlett in this episode.
3:05 Matt Lewis? A very warm welcome to Gommedival, Wayne.
3:07 Speaker 01 Hello, very nice to be here.
3:10 Matt Lewis? It's great to have you with us. I guess before we talk a little bit about After Agincourt, we ought to just make sure we're completely caught up with where we're at by the time of Agincourt. So can you just give us a little bit of a brief overview of how Henry V has ended up in France, fighting this kind of legendary battle?
3:27 Speaker 01 When Henry came to the throne in 1413, on the death of his father, Henry IV, and Henry V's reign had been somewhat dramatic. There'd been frequent civil wars, fighting in which young Henry V, yet to be, was also involved. And when he became king in 1413, England was a pretty divided country, being through like 30 odd years of turmoil. And I think Henry probably felt, hang on a minute, I need to do something to make a kind of statement early in my reign. What better than to try and repeat the great triumphs of Ebert
4:07 Speaker 01 III, the longstanding English claim to France, which went back getting on for 100 years even by then? What better way to unite the country? So pretty much from day one of his reign, Henry V was planning to launch an expedition to France. There is a lot of ducking and diving, if you like, between fourteen thirteen and fourteen fifteen. Well, rather phony negotiations went on to try and avoid a war. But by the time you get to the summer of fourteen fifteen, Henry is ready to go with a large invasion fleet and decides he's going to set off to France and try and stake his claim there.
4:51 Speaker 01 And as I say, restore the glories of Edward III and get his reign off to a very positive, dramatic start. And buy support by doing that.
5:03 Matt Lewis? I think some of those negotiations you talk about, calling them phony negotiations, is perfect. Because it's quite funny to read some of them, isn't it? Because it's very much Henry saying, I don't really want to come over there and fight you, but I kind of have to.
5:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's all the will of God. You know, England is supposed to be the owner of France, the rightful owner. Yeah, Henry is very much trying to get public relations on his side. And, you know, going through the motions of saying, well, I don't really want to fight you fellow Christians, but you know, I don't really have an option. So it was very much, you know, there for appearances' sake, I think.
5:37 Matt Lewis? Yeah. And so having, you know, launched this invasion of France, which culminates in this instance in the Battle of Agincourt. When you look at Agincourt, do you see that victory there as luck? Because I mean, I think everyone would agree he shouldn't have won that battle. Is it luck? Is it brilliance? Is it a combination of those things? Because he manages to get his army into a really sticky situation, but then he manages to get them out of it as well.
6:00 Speaker 01 No, that's absolutely true. And I think like all of these things, we love dramatic battles and we look for simple explanations of the way they go. But actually, there's a combination of things here. I think perhaps one of the main things in Henry's favour on the day was although his army is a bit bedraggled by this stage and, you know, many people have dropped out through exhaustion or been Back to England because they're ill. They are at least united. Henry is very much the man in charge. He, you know, he's got his finger on the pulse. What he says goes. If you contrast that to the French, they are totally disorganized.
6:42 Speaker 01 A guy who's in command of the French army doesn't turn up until the morning of the battle virtually. He's a young inexperienced guy. France is kind of totally disunited anyway. So as much as anything, as well as the brilliance of Henry, and he did have a very firm grip on his troops. And of course, the famous archers and the men at arms there were, you know, formidable warriors. Also, the disunity of his opponents played a huge part in the battle, I think. And Henry, I think, did play a masterful kind of role in the battle. He played a bad hand as well as he could have done, really.
7:23 Speaker 01 So he's very much the guy in charge there, but the French really do play into his hands. As you say, probably shouldn't have been there in the first place. He's conquered Arles and then thinks to himself, what do I do next? He doesn't really seem to have a very clear plan of action once he's conquered Arles, the port on the French coast. And then decides he's going to make this glorious march over towards Calais. And possibly suspecting that the French won't intercept him. The French have been avoiding battles with the English for the last fifty years because they don't tend to work out very well for the French. So maybe he also thinks I'll call their bluff and in turn they call his bluff.
8:06 Speaker 01 So he could have been in a very disastrous position if his opponents had been a bit more organized, I think. You know, they have a numerical advantage, that they knew the land. They should have been able to get supplies much more easily. All of those things played into French hands, but at the end of the day, it was a decisive victory for the English.
8:29 Matt Lewis? Yeah, absolutely. And so having won that victory, and I think you do get the sense that it must have felt almost as legendary as it's become since in the immediate aftermath, given the odds and the circumstances that were against the English. What is Henry's next move then? Does he need to regroup? Is he looking to immediately capitalise on this victory?
8:52 Speaker 01 Really good question actually, because from what I can make out of Henry, the first reaction immediately after the battle, his immediate reaction was to get back home as quickly as possible. You know, on the very evening of Agincourt, he's already making plans to start the march again next day to get to Calais. And, you know, there is a real possibility perhaps that he doesn't even know that he's won the battle yet. You know, he's won the battle on the day, but he doesn't know if there are other French forces around. His men are tired, they would have suffered some losses. So actually, the next morning, he's really getting out there as quickly as possible and completing his
9:37 Speaker 01 journey to Calais. And I think he would have been very well aware that his victory had some useful consequences, but it really didn't decide the war. All it did was it allowed him to get back to England to fight another day. So it is very much a case of let's get back to England, let's regroup, let's think about our next move, you know, let's recover our strength, let's get more troops, let's milk the moment. I think there was definitely something of that as well. As I said just now, Henry wants to get his reign off to a good start and he's got his reign off to a great start. So he's probably also thinking
10:18 Speaker 01 of the PR consequences and thinking, hey, you know, this is me, I bought myself some time now, you know, the people will love this. So I need to be seen to milk the moment for all it's worth. So I think it's regrouping, but also milking the moment, which are the two things which are uppermost in his mind, that he can go back to England.
10:41 Matt Lewis? His welcome back into London is kind of pretty spectacular and legendary, isn't it? And I think Henry is always really careful to position this as it's not his victory, it's God's victory. But that's almost a PR trick in itself, isn't it? Because what he's saying there is- God chose me to be king and gave you this victory because I'm king. So he kind of is taking the credit, but being very careful to position it in public as being God's victory. God wanted him to win that battle.
11:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, very much so. And I think it's really important. We remember the times Henry was living in. So we kind of live in a secular world now where perhaps people don't take that kind of thing as seriously. But Henry was very, from what we can tell, was very pious, conventionally pious. And, you know, this was a very religious age. And he very much goes out of his way to give the credit to God. But as you say, in so doing, he's kind of giving himself a little bit of a vicarious pat on the back too. By showing what a wonderful, humble Christian king I am. And by the way, this is all because God wants me to be the King of France.
11:49 Speaker 01 Uh, so, you know, victory in battle in those days was very much seen as a kind of sign from God that he's on your side. So by this wonderful triumph, you know, God has demonstrated he's an Englishman, if you like. In this particular situation, you know, God's given his approval, won this stunning victory. So to God be the glory. But if I get some of it too, then that's fine. I can cope with that as well.
12:18 Matt Lewis? And it does take Henry till kind of 1417 before he's ready to go back to France again. And what do the preparations for that campaign in 1417? Tell us about what's changed. How different are they from the preparations in 1415? I mean, you talk in the book, for example, about the types of ships and sailors that Henry's calling on now.
12:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's right. I mean, I think this is very interesting because uh, what you start to see in the later campaigns after 1415 is a kind of slight change in the composition of things. Uh, so whereas in 1415, it had been the great lords of England who'd been throwing in thousands of troops and that kind of thing. Uh, in 1417, you get people from slightly lower down the social scale. Coming up with smaller, smaller groups, but large numbers of smaller groups of, of soldiers. Back in those days, I mean, soldiers were effectively contracted. We've moved away from the feudal system.
13:19 Speaker 01 So Henry had these contracts called indentures, which, which basically said, okay, Lord so and so, I want you to provide me with twenty men. And Lord so and so, I want you to provide me with thirty men. So you get a lot more of these middle class, I suppose we could call them, middle ranking aristocrats involved in kind of the preparations. The other interesting thing i- is, as you say, the naval side of it. Now, Henry didn't really have a navy. Uh, he built a couple of ships already, but most of his ships were kind of what they call arrested. They're kind of like conscripted.
13:59 Speaker 01 Uh, so ship owners from around the south coast and the east coast of England are told, uh, by the way, we're taking your ships for six months or whatever it is. So, so they're not very happy at this, some of them. I mean, they're losing their ships, they're losing their income for, you know, for months on end. But they kind of have to go along with this. And Henry is also conscripting or actually contracting rather ships from the continent as well. So you have Prussia, Portugal is another source of, of kind of ships for Henry. So, so they're kind of like this massive organisation of, of the ships
14:41 Speaker 01 uh, to support the expedition in fourteen seventeen. And what is also very clear is Henry appreciates that this is going to be a long campaign. He has huge supplies of, uh, very basic cannon, which, uh, he started to use in big numbers. Uh, he has huge supplies of gunstones to take with him. Uh, lots of other routine supplies, food, that kind of thing. He kind of knows this is going to be a long, brutal, ruling campaign. And whereas. Asincor was relatively short, you know, a few months between landing at Arfler and returning
15:22 Speaker 01 from Asincor, this could last for an awful long time. So he's there for the duration. So it takes him a while to plan. The meantime, in fourteen sixteen, he's in danger of losing Arfler because the French are besieging it. So it's even possible that he could have lost all his gains in fourteen fifteen, the year after. So he also has to make sure that he doesn't take his eye off the ball and doesn't just prepare for the attack, but he hangs on to what he's got. So he's very busy making military preparations for this long extended campaign, which he kind of knows is coming up.
16:01 Matt Lewis? Yeah, and we often, I think, associate this period in English history, almost exclusively with Henry himself. Henry the Fifth is the name at the forefront of everything. But can you give us a bit of detail about who he's leaning on? You know, if this is going to be a protracted campaign, he can't do it all himself. Who amongst his family and the nobility is Henry kind of leaning on the most?
16:23 Speaker 01 Well, he has three brothers, Thomas, Duke of Clarence, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and John, the later Duke of Bedford. And he relies on all of these to a significant extent. Though interestingly, he's closer to some than others. His main lieutenant would be John, Duke of Bedford. And he would keep an eye on things in England for a while, and then he would be involved in the French campaign. A little bit ambivalent with Thomas, Duke of Clarence, who, from what we can make out, was Henry the Fourth's favourite son. And perhaps, you know, Henry the Fifth felt a bit left out in that relationship. But also, he does play a very big part supporting Henry.
17:06 Speaker 01 And back home, he's got his uncle, Cardinal Henry Beaufort, who's kind of like, we don't have a prime minister back then, but he's kind of like the closest thing to a prime minister you can get. He's the one cajoling Parliament to support Henry, come up with money and support for him when it matters. So he's playing a big part. But then he's got this group of slightly lower down commanders like the Earl of Warwick, a guy called Sir John Cornwall. These are all very good, efficient soldiers, more than capable of launching attacks on their own initiative. John Cornwall's a great example.
17:50 Speaker 01 He leads what we might now call commando raids on a few occasions. So he has this very good collection of talented, both senior commanders and then the more local commanders, who can take on things on his behalf. Because the campaign is so big, it's over such a wide area, he cannot possibly do it all himself. So he has to delegate, he has to rely on these people to help him out. And generally speaking, they do a very good job. He has, he can rely on these people absolutely, either militarily or politically. You know, arguably Cardinal Beaufort's role is as important as the military side of it
18:33 Speaker 01 in keeping the home front, if you like, on board with what Henry's doing when he's away for literally years on end.
18:41 Matt Lewis? Yeah, Henry always strikes me as someone who, in common with, well, his great grandad, Edward III, is one of those people that was able to bring people together around him to kind of inspire people to be loyal to him, but also able to trust people in a way that lots of kings often find it difficult to trust other people. I think with Edward III and Henry V, you kind of get this sense that they will, they will trust you until you give them a reason not to, whereas lots of other kings, you feel like they sense they can't trust anybody. And I think, I quite often think that's quite key to the success that Edward and Henry have in military terms, that their men love them and respect them.
19:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, I, I, I agree. And I think in Henry's case in particular, I think he's a slightly more complex character than perhaps we think he was. He certainly did command enormous respect. And I'm not sure if that was more perhaps for a sense of slight foreboding in his presence. I think he was probably quite a stern guy. Probably didn't suffer full spray gladly, and I'm sure people respected him enormously. But whether they did that through a slight sense of fear perhaps, rather than devotion, I think is an arguable point. And one interesting thing about Henry, I think you're absolutely right. He was great at delegating to people.
20:01 Speaker 01 But on the rare occasions where people betrayed his trust, he could be absolutely ruthless. So you had the the situation of Lord Scrope, who was a good friend of Henry's, who was involved in a plot, even kind of in a secondhand way against Henry just before Agincourt. And despite the fact he's a very close friend of Henry before this, Henry doesn't hesitate to have him beheaded. There's no kind of, in fact, I think I almost get the impression because he was his friend, that sense of betrayal was even greater than it would have been, and it takes on a personal betrayal quality.
20:44 Speaker 01 So I think he was very much, very good at delegating. But if you let him down, then you could have a big problem on your hands to deal with that situation.
20:56 Matt Lewis? Yeah. And as Henry gets ready for this fourteen seventeen campaign to go back to France, do we get a sense from him of what his real ultimate endgame is? Is he really trying to make himself king of France? Is that what he's ultimately aiming at?
21:09 Speaker 01 Do you know, that's a really difficult question to answer because all his pronouncements are, yes, I am the king of France, blah, blah, blah, God's will, all of this kind of stuff. But being a pragmatist, you would think possibly this is a bit of a Trumpian negotiation tactic. Start high and then maybe negotiate your way downwards a bit.
21:34 Speaker 01 I think it's very significant that again, he launches his campaign in Normandy. Because Normandy had been obviously a key part of England, you know, the Normans, the Norman Congress by definition came from Normandy. And it had been lost several centuries before. It's also kind of opposite the English coast, so it's a natural place to go. And I partly think probably if we could ask Henry and he would tell us honestly what his thoughts were, I think maybe his first thought is let's get hold of Normandy, you know, that that would be a really crucial thing to do.
22:16 Speaker 01 He's still got land in the southwest of France as well, in around Gascany, that's still part of English possessions. So I suspect he probably was prepared to negotiate downwards, even though he didn't actually say that publicly. My gut feeling is that he probably inwardly thought, okay, let's see what we can get out of this and if I have to give up a bit, let's do it.
22:43 Matt Lewis? And and as he prepares to leave England, to what extent do you think Henry has has united England, solved the problems of the Lancastrian legitimacy, you know, while he's preparing to board ship to head to France, does he need to look over his shoulder and worry about what's happening back in England still?
22:59 Speaker 01 I think to a limited extent, I I think there are definite signs that England was more united in the immediate aftermath of Agincourt. There were no kind of serious plots going on while he was doing so, but there were still some murmurings. He had a very old friend called Sir John Oldcastle, who was a bit of a religious zealot, if you like, he's one of the the lollards who who kind of have a very different view of religion than the traditional view of religion. And he's still trying to foment trouble in Henry's absence, so they've fallen out big time over religion and stuff. So he's still trying to.
23:44 Speaker 01 Stir up trouble, but he's not really getting an awful lot of traction. He's trying to get support from Scotland, Sir John Oldcastle, and he's negotiated with them. Scotland was in a very strange position at this time because the Scottish King, King James I, had been a prisoner of the English for the last 10 years. So that kind of limited their action to some extent. But, but you know, a lot of people in Scotland, James I had never been their active king. He was actually taken prisoner before he became king. And in particular, some of his own family didn't really want him to come back because they're acting as regent in his absence. And thank you very much. We're enjoying this.
24:29 Speaker 01 So please don't hurry back too quickly. So there's these things going on, negotiations between Oldcastle and Scotland, but they don't really come to that much. So I do suspect that the victory at Agincourt had a really important short term impact in uniting behind this successful king. And we have to remember, this is a military age. And a successful king was one who was militarily successful. And again, you know, this is God once more saying, I'm on your side. I approve of this guy. Stop this nonsense about him not being the proper king and all of that kind of stuff. So I think it had a very beneficial effect, at least for a while.
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26:53 Matt Lewis? And we also ought to consider the situation in France as well. We've mentioned, you mentioned earlier that France sort of, in part at least, lose Agincourt because they're divided and they're split and there's no clear kind of command and control structure there anymore. How much of the, the internal issues within France, and I'm thinking about the, the mental health situation of Charles VI and the split between Charles VI and his son, the Dauphin, and that kind of disunity, is all of that helping Henry too?
27:22 Speaker 01 Oh, I think it has a huge impact, very much so. The situation in France had been a mess for around 20, 20 plus years by the time Henry becomes king. As you say, the French king has, Charles VI, he has a lot of mental health issues, including, according to some later commentators, and no one could touch him because he thought he was made of glass and he would shatter if they did. So clearly, you know, there's a lot of instability there. And he's not like that all of the time. I mean, he comes and goes, there are occasional moments of lucidity, but he's like it a lot of the time and it's very unpredictable and very hard to govern when that's going on.
28:06 Speaker 01 So two factions really emerge in France.
28:10 Speaker 01 One became known as the Armagnac faction. They are kind of supporting the Duke of Orleans, who is a brother of Charles VI. The other faction is called the Burgundian faction, led by the Duke of Burgundy, John the Fearless. And earlier on, John had basically arranged the assassination of the Duke of Orleans on the streets of Paris, which didn't go down very well, as you can imagine. And, you know, the next, the next twenty years, actually, after this, even long after Henry V is gone, this kind of factionalism is still dividing France.
28:50 Speaker 01 So the Armagnacs are supporting Charles VI and his side. And the Burgundians, the Duke of Burgundy is a master politician. He's kind of staying a little bit on the sidelines, trying to stay neutral, but in a way that serves his own interests more than anyone else's. So he's kind of sympathetic a little bit towards England, but he doesn't really get involved with the English side because that could be seen as treason. But he's a huge destabilising influence on the way France is being governed. And even up to the eve of Agincourt, he was under pressure to turn up at Agincourt with his troops. He had access to many troops, but he didn't turn up.
29:34 Speaker 01 Same with the Duke of Brittany. He's another guy who is also a little bit ambivalent towards the ruling French family. So this division is really hampering France, both politically and militarily. It means they're not getting access to all the military resources they could have. In fact, quite often, the military resources in France are too busy fighting each other to worry about the English. And you, you have this situation where Henry V is advancing through Normandy and the resistance almost completely evaporates at one stage because of this infighting that's going on, which is distracting the French from the English to war sorting out their own internal trouble.
30:19 Speaker 01 I think that has a massive positive impact for Henry. He's able to to kind of play these people off against each other to some extent. Though the Duke of Burgundy's den is a bit too clever to be completely suckered in on the English side. But he's also helped Henry because he doesn't have the military opposition he could have had. If there was a unified France to face up to him. So it's a huge benefit for him, I think.
30:47 Matt Lewis? Which from the French point of view must have been so incredibly frustrating because there at Agincourt, you've got this perfectly painted picture. Of the dangers of this kind of division internally, and yet they don't learn the lesson from that. They simply keep going at each other. And you mentioned the book, at one point, you know, the the Dauphin sets up a rival administration to his father. And he's actually negotiating with Henry to try and get Henry's help against the Duke of Burgundy, which Henry must have been absolutely rubbing his hands together at.
31:15 Speaker 01 Yeah, he would have, he would have loved this. He's, he's in a perfect position to play off one faction against the other. And I think Henry probably always saw the Burgundians as being the most likely longer term ally. But that might never have happened until, in fact, the Duke of Burgundy is assassinated. By the opposing French faction. And that basically almost forces the hand of the Burgundians and John the Fearless's successor, Philip the Good. To kind of say, well, okay, you killed my father. All bets are off. I'm going to go in with the English now. So, so you know, that that assassination was disastrous from a French perspective.
31:59 Speaker 01 Because it was bad enough having the Duke of Burgundy kind of staying a little bit on the sidelines, but also creating problems. But now you've got active cooperation between the English and the Burgundians. And, you know, a disastrous situation for the French. Kind of manufactured by themselves, by their inability. To kind of work out their differences and get along with each other against a common enemy. And there's the irony in warfare. I mean, a common enemy is often what unites the people. You know, you think about going to a different part of the world. You go to Afghanistan. Where you have many tribal divisions, the minute a foreign invader invades Afghanistan.
32:43 Speaker 01 Those divisions kind of disappear on a temporary basis at least because you have a common enemy. But it doesn't work in France. For whatever reason, they can't see past their own internal squabbling to see we've got a common enemy on our doorstep, moving every day closer to Rouen and then Paris. And actually, we should be more worried about them than anyone else. But the hatred is so big and it's so personal between these factions. As I say, people have been assassinated. So, you know, that hatred conquers all, which is a really bad position for the French to be in.
33:20 Matt Lewis? Yeah, it's almost relentlessly shooting themselves in the foot, no matter how much it hurts. Every time they do it, they're just going to do it again. They're never going to learn.
33:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly.
33:28 Matt Lewis? And I guess to move the campaign forward, you mentioned that Henry is kind of targeting Normandy at least to begin with. And one of the big moments in this campaign is the siege of Rouen. So I wonder if you could just talk us through a little bit of the circumstances for those, particularly those inside the walls of Rouen, there's those outside the walls of Rouen. And then we also get the situation where there's those sandwiched in between as well, don't we?
33:51 Speaker 01 Oh, my goodness, it's a horrific situation. I mean, the siege warfare in France is very interesting because it can take several different forms. Sometimes there's an all out massive assault where things are over quite quickly. Other times, it's a much more drawn out process. And the situation of Rouen was particularly significant. It was, it was after Paris, probably the main place in France. And it was certainly the traditional capital of Normandy, which was a hugely important part of France. So Henry's kind of approach there is not to try completely to batter it into submission. I mean, there are assaults and things like that.
34:34 Speaker 01 But he doesn't want to take a completely devastated city. So this is a much more protracted affair. And it's a very, very tight siege which goes on for literally months. And over time, obviously provisions for those inside Rouen start to run out. And they get to the situation where those inside the city fighting to to keep it from Henry think we have to take some very radical decisions here. And the radical decision was that anybody who was not capable of fighting was a useless mouth to feed. Basically, they said, okay, we're going to throw you out of the city.
35:18 Speaker 01 And obviously, perhaps thinking in the process, if they throw them outside the city, Henry will show mercy, he will let them go, and that will be the end of it. But this is where we see the real ruthless side of Henry coming into play because he doesn't let that happen. And basically, when these many people are ejected, he says, well, they're your people, not my people. I'm not going to feed them. They should stay where they are. So you get this horrible situation where you have these women, children, old men, probably actually trapped in like a no man's land between the city walls on the one side,
36:01 Speaker 01 Henry's army on the other, starving to death. And you know, there's a there's a rather kind of ironic moment where at Christmas, Henry gives them a day off and gives them so provisions. But it's just for one day and the next day it's back to what you were doing before. So it must have been horrendous for these poor people, living without shelter, without food, probably cold in the winter. It would have been horrendous for them. So terrible situation for them to be in.
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37:43 Matt Lewis? Yeah, and this is a moment, so his perceived cruelty to those people who are kicked out of Rouen is a moment that Henry is usually criticised, sometimes criticised quite heavily for. I find it interesting that the people inside Rouen who've booted these people out aren't ever criticised as much as Henry is. What they're doing is effectively trying to cheat the rules of a siege and they know it and Henry knows it as well. So for me, their every bit is bad.
38:11 Matt Lewis? But is Henry behaving, do you think, in this moment? Is he behaving as his men and perhaps even his enemies would expect? Or is what he's doing kind of beyond the pale? And should we think of him as being cruel in this moment?
38:22 Speaker 01 I think you have to try and see it through 15th century eyes. And the rules of war were very different then than they are now. Though even nowadays, sometimes things like the Geneva Convention don't always seem to mean that much. But, you know, I think Henry would have been seen, certainly by his own side, as being well within his rights to do this. And the blame game, from the English perspective, would very much have been, well, it's your fault, you French people. It's God's will that Henry be is going to be your king. And you are resisting the will of God. So actually, all of this is on you, not on the English.
39:05 Speaker 01 And this is the way, rightly or wrongly, I think the 15th century commander would see things. Henry, I don't think had any kind of moral, kind of doubt about the situation. He certainly, the way he expressed himself publicly was, it's your fault. You should be surrendering. I'm your rightful king. You're in rebellion against me. Rebels don't deserve any mercy. There were quotes from the Bible that Henry used earlier in his campaign, which basically said, according to the Bible in the Old Testament, if you take a city which is rebellious against you,
39:46 Speaker 01 and they're resisting the rightful rule that you have, then you should kill everybody in it. So a rather kind of extreme interpretation of the Bible, but it was certainly one that Henry did turn to. So he would have very much have felt justified in doing this, I think. And I think, you know, it is dangerous when we think of things from our modern perspective. We, we have to try and rethink ourselves into a 15th century mindset. And that's not always easy. Even when you read a lot about it, it still doesn't come naturally. You know, you still think, gosh, that's horrific. That's really cruel. But I don't think Henry, or his men for that matter, in the main, saw it that way.
40:30 Matt Lewis? And I guess we ought to cover how the siege of Rouen is concluded because Shakespeare gives us this glorious kind of once more into the breach moment, doesn't he? But is that quite how the city fell?
40:41 Speaker 01 Not really. I, I mean, pretty much Rouen was abandoned to its fate in the end. You, you had a strange situation in that for a time before his assassination, the Duke of Burgundy, John the Fearless, had kind of become the main man in France. He'd managed to grab hold of Queen Isabelle, Charles V's wife, which kind of gave him a very powerful position. And he's now got a problem because many of the places in Normandy are now nominally his to kind of defend.
41:16 Speaker 01 And because he doesn't really want to get involved in the war any more than he has to, he's kind of really stuck between a rock and a hard place because on the one hand, French public opinion will say, well, you're the head guy now, you should be defending us. But on the other hand, he's going to get into this really nasty situation with Henry and the English. So I think it would be fair to say his involvement was pretty lukewarm in that defence. So pretty much Rouen is left to its own devices and told to cut the best deal it can because no one's going to come to your aid. You're on your own. Sort it out as well as you can. Get the best deal that you can. So yes, Shakespeare's,
42:01 Speaker 01 I've often said, a great playwright, but not necessarily the greatest historian. Though he has a big impact, of course, on our views of history because of his writings being so powerful. But no, it's very much, let's leave it to you guys. Do the best you can. We can't help.
42:18 Matt Lewis? Yeah. I mean, as someone who's interested in Richard III, you're very much preaching to the choir about Shakespeare here. So having been successful in Rouen, does Henry then set his sights on Paris? I mean, I guess that's got to be the ultimate prize if you want to take over France.
42:32 Speaker 01 Very much so. So he then moves on. It's a place called Pontois, which is kind of halfway down the road to Paris. He launches, again, not him personally, but some of his very able commanders, launch what is kind of literally a dawn raid on this place and managed to take it by stealth almost. And it's a holiday in Paris, the very day this is happening. Pontois is not too far away. And the French are enjoying themselves inside Paris, having a good time, the festival and everything. All of a sudden, they see this huge trail of refugees charging towards the gates of Paris. And they realise that
43:13 Speaker 01 this is the people of Pontois who've managed to escape the English. But the English are now very much moving on Paris. You know, this is kind of a real significant moment.
43:26 Speaker 01 Obviously, uh, that the French capital i- is basically on the verge of being in the hands of the English. So, yes, Henry is very much trying to say, okay, Paris is my next stop. Uh, and, you know, if I conquer Paris, I conquer France. Which wasn't quite true, because you still had a lot of the southern bits of France still very much in French hands. Even if he had taken Paris immediately. But that's very much his move. Yes, I'm gonna take Paris. It's your capital. How can you resist me if I occupy your capital? Again, I am the rightful king. You should give up.
44:07 Matt Lewis? Yeah, yeah. And we have a few writers from kind of within Paris in particular, writing about this period. Do we get a sense of how, how Henry is viewed in Paris? And also a sense of how Charles VI and the Dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy are viewed in the capital too? I mean, who are they looking to, to be their champion?
44:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, Paris was in a, in a position where it was probably the majority were on the side of the Burgundians, uh, in the ongoing internal disputes. And, uh, for a while it had been occupied by the Armagnacs. Uh, Bernard Darmagnac, he was a very powerful, quite ruthless man. Uh, again, uh, you know, in, in line with the mores of the time, he was very strict. Uh, but in Paris, there is this ruthless massacre where the citizens rise up against the Armagnacs. There is a massive slaughter of Armagnac supporters, including Bernard Darmagnac,
45:11 Speaker 01 who dies a pretty horrific death, actually. And, uh, and Paris then kind of moves more into the orbit of the Burgundians. And that there is certainly, as time goes on, you get the sense that the situation of France is so chaotic that unbelievably, some people, including many people in Paris, would actually welcome Henry as kind of a restorer of law and order. Rather than an ongoing kind of chaos that they've had to put up with. Charles the Sixth increasingly becomes an irrelevant figure. Because, you know, he's often absent when key decisions are made. He's not in the right mental situation to be involved in those.
45:57 Speaker 01 So he's almost become an irrelevant nonentity. And over time, it's Queen Isabelle and the Duke of Burgundy. Who become like the key decision makers on the French side. And as time goes on, they start to realise, we can't win this war. The English are too powerful, they're too organised, their leadership is much more united than ours. So eventually we get to the situation where negotiations start. And this is where I think it's interesting, because earlier on you asked, was Henry's aim always to be King of France? And for a little while, he toned down his demands.
46:41 Speaker 01 But when he sees the state that France is now in, those demands come back again. And he now insists, actually, I know we were negotiating before. But those conditions have changed and all bets are off. I am now insisting that you recognise me as the King of France as well as England. And eventually, many people feel that this is the only option they have. Particularly in the north of France, Paris, but also many other parts of the north of France, they think. We have to, we have no choice, we're going to lose everything. So we're going to think the unthinkable and we're going to accept that Henry should be our king.
47:27 Matt Lewis? Yeah, and so we arrive at the Treaty of Troy, which kind of makes. Charles the Sixth king for the rest of his life, but Henry is kind of regent of France and will succeed. Charles as the next King of France. But then we also know that Henry won't live too much longer after that arrangement is made and he dies just weeks before Charles VI does as well, which throws the whole thing into chaos again because Henry V leaves behind a nine month old baby to succeed him. Charles VI has the Dauphin still trying to claim the crown. So we've still got huge issues. So the Treaty of Twain, it kind of doesn't really settle anything, does it? It almost feels like what it really does is set the stage for the next kind of 30 years of continued fighting.
48:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's very much a symbolic rather than a practical agreement, I think. I mean, Charles VI was probably incapable of being king anyway, so actually making Henry regent made him the de facto king of France anyway. But of course, only half of France, because again, the southern half of France is still pretty largely aligned behind the Dauphin. So Henry is not really in a position to rule over anything south of, you know, Orleans. That kind of part of France is pretty much Dauphinist territory and will remain so for, well, for the rest of the duration, really. And you could actually argue that Henry's
48:55 Speaker 01 role became more complicated after the treaty because he now has a kind of responsibility to conquer those parts in the south of France, which remain unconquered. And that's a huge undertaking financially, in terms of manpower, all of that kind of stuff. So Henry has taken on obligations which in the end, because of his untimely death, he never met. And it's very arguable, he could possibly never have met them because the task of ruling England and then at the same time conquering half of France, which remains unconquered.
49:37 Speaker 01 You know, by definition, I guess most French people don't really want to be ruled by an English king. That that would have been a absolutely real big commitment on his part. And I don't think we can, we never know, of course, but it's one of the what ifs. Could Henry ever have conquered all of France? I I think that must be highly debatable, certainly. So, yeah, I mean, really, it just it just kicks the ball down the road. And we are now in for another thirty odd years of fighting after Henry's death. Though I find it very ironic that Henry VI, who was probably one of the least effective kings of England, arguably,
50:19 Speaker 01 actually was the only person ever to be crowned King of England and King of France. So there's a strange irony in all of that, I think.
50:28 Matt Lewis? Yeah, there definitely is. And yeah, yeah, one of those huge what what if, what if Henry V had lived even just a few years longer? Could he really have made it stick? Could he really have capitalised on what he'd done? And like you said, there's there's huge obstacles in the way, but also Henry often feels like maybe he was the one person who could have done this, who might have been able to achieve all of this when you look at what he has done during his reign. And I guess just to end on, you know, having studied this period, what do you what do you make of Henry? Should we think of him as as being one of the great medieval warrior kings? Should we think of him as being this kind of cruel tyrant? He's sometimes painted as a war criminal in in more modern views of him. What do you make of him?
51:13 Speaker 01 I I I think he's complex. And yes, first of all, I do think we should have think of him as a great war leader. And ironically, perhaps even more so because of his campaign after Agincourt and for Agincourt itself. I mean, Agincourt was a hugely dramatic and and in its own way, very important victory, not underplaying that at all. But Henry demonstrates very different qualities after Agincourt in his control of siege warfare and even the political dimension of warfare. He's very, very astute.
51:47 Speaker 01 To us, he would seem cruel. But again, in the context of the times, was he any more cruel than many other medieval kings? I think that's highly debatable. I think things about being a war criminal, again, that's an accusation you could throw from the modern perspective at many medieval commanders. You know, Richard the First slaughtered four thousand prisoners during the Crusades, for example. He's often been castigated for that. But the worldview was very different then. It doesn't excuse what they did. And I think Henry probably did feel remorse to an extent because he's fighting against fellow Christians.
52:27 Speaker 01 And he's taking Christian lives. And he does say that on a few occasions. So I think there was a bit of a moral dilemma in that for him. But we come back to the fact, he thought, God has decreed, I should be the king of France. Therefore, I'm only doing the will of God. And I think he kind of genuinely believed that, actually. We never know that for sure, of course, but my reading of Henry would be, he was very religious, very pious, very devout. And he probably believed that, that he was only doing what he was meant to be doing. So maybe it's a good excuse to, to kind of excuse him some of the, the kind of tougher things that he did. But I don't think he was out of line with many other monarchs of the time.
53:12 Matt Lewis? I mean, I think it's been really interesting to talk about all of this stuff because I think we, you know, Agincourt does stick out like a, a big sore thumb during this period and we talk about it an awful lot. And I think there we see Henry's brilliance in a desperate situation. But I think what you, you paint a picture of through the book is, is that after Agincourt, in those campaigns, we see him much more as a competent and comfortable military campaigner on a much broader scale than Agincourt was. So it's a different Henry. And in many ways, a more impressive Henry that we see after Agincourt. So yeah, thank you very much for, for joining us to explain all of this because I think it's been fascinating to pick through it. And, and obviously there's lots more detail in the book that people can go and read about as well.
53:53 Speaker 01 Thank you very much, Matt. It's been great to talk to you.
53:56 Matt Lewis? It's been a pleasure.
53:58 Matt Lewis? If you've enjoyed this episode and would like to hear a little bit more, we've got an episode in our vaults with Dan Jones all about Henry V, and one with Jonathan Sumption on the end of the Hundred Years' War. There are new instalments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back to join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week at historyhit.com/subscribe. Anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with History Hit.
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