Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

Richard, whose chief fault rested only in that, that he was too bountiful to his friends, and too merciful to his foes." He was now in the forty-sixth year of his age, when, at a council held at the White Friars in London, "order was taken for ships and galleys to be built and made ready, and all things necessary provided for a voyage which he meant to make into the Holy Land, there to recover Jerusalem from the Infidels; for it grieved him (it is said) to consider the great malice of Christian princes, that were bent upon a mischievous purpose to destroy one another, rather than to make war against the enemies of the Christian faith, as in conscience it seemed to him they were bound.” That he seriously

entertained this intention there is no doubt: he was moved to it by the common belief of that age, by an apprehension (from an inward sense of premature decay) that his life would not be long, by the desire of obtain. ing such assurances for the next world as were liberally promised to those who engaged in such meritorious expeditions, and, perhaps, as tradition has said, by a prediction that he was to die in Jerusalem, which would seem to him prophetic of his salvation. Preparations were made with all speed; and when "his provisions were ready, and that he was furnished with sufficient treasure, soldiers, captains, victuals, munitions, tall ships, strong galleys, and all things necessary for such a royal journey," while he was praying at St. Edward the Confessor's shrine, "to take there his leave, and so to speed him upon his voyage," he was seized with a fit, and being carried into an apartment in the abbot's house, called Jerusalem, there he expired.* It is remarkable that he should have been buried at Canterbury, beside the Black Prince, whose son he had deposed and murdered.

Fabyan, 576. Holinshed, iii. 58. An account is preserved de stuffurâ navis, in which Philippa, Henry IV.'s daughter, on her marriage to the king of Denmark, sailed for that country. This stuffura consisted of two guns, forty pounds of powder for those guns, and forty stone bullets for them (petras pro gunnes), forty tampons, four touches, one mallet, two firepans, forty pavys, twenty-four bows, and forty sheaves of arrows.Rymer, viii. 447.

[ocr errors]

A.D. One of the first acts of Henry V. was to remove the 1415. body of that murdered king from its obscure burialplace, and deposit it, with royal solemnities, in a sumptuous tomb at Westminster as if to proclaim unto the world that although he had succeeded to the throne, he had not partaken in the guilt by which it had been purchased. The truce which subsisted at this time had produced little security to seafaring people; and safeconducts were set at nought, piracy being carried on both upon the high seas and on the coasts, and even in the ports of England, Ireland, and Wales, with an audacity. that defied the laws; and it appears that pirates found every where from the inhabitants that sort of encouragement which even in better times is shown to smugglers. It was therefore found necessary, early in the new reign, to declare such breaches of the king's truce and of his safe-conduct high treason, and subject to the same punishment, as also all voluntary secret abetment, procuring, concealing, hiring, sustaining, and maintaining of persons engaged in such courses. And conservators of the truce and of the king's safe-conducts were appointed in the ports, with full power to proceed against offenders; it being required that every conservator should for his qualification have an estate of forty pounds in land by the year at least. Two men learned in the law were to be associated in the commission with each conservator. But then, as in every age, it was soon found that measures, which were designed for the protection of the peaceable part of mankind, were immediately taken advantage of by men of predatory habits. The Scotch, and other enemies of England, availed themselves of this law, because it secured them against reprisals so long as it was enforced; and a subsequent statute, after setting forth that this consequence had been experienced, declared, that whenever the king's subjects had thus suffered wrong, the king would, to their greater comfort, and to the intent that they should have remedy without delay, grant them letters of marque and reprisal.*

Holinshed, iii. 62.

† 2 Hen. 5. c. 6.

VICTORIES OF HENRY V.

53

When the king had determined upon leading an army into France, he hired ships from Zeelandt, Holland, and Friseland, his own naval means not being sufficient for the transport: among his other preparations, “requisite for so high an enterprise," boats covered with leather, for the passage of rivers, are enumerated. The fleet with which he crossed from Southampton, and landed at the mouth of the Seine, consisted of 1000 sail.‡ The siege and capture of Harfleur followed, and the battle of Agincourt, — one of those ever-memorable victories, the remembrance of which contributes to support the national spirit whereby they were achieved. Like those of Cressy and of Poictiers, it was gained under circumstances of such extraordinary disadvantage, that the conqueror himself was impressed with reverential awe at his own success; and when on his return to England the Londoners met him in solemn procession on Blackheath, he, “as one remembering from whom all victories are sent," would not allow his helmet to be carried before him, whereon the people might have seen the blows and dints that he had received ; "neither would he suffer any ditties to be made and sung by minstrels of his glorious victory, for that he would have the praise and thanks altogether given to God.”§

Soon afterwards the emperor Sigismund, who was A.D. related to Henry by marriage, came to Calais as a 1416. mediator between the two kingdoms, bringing with him the archbishop of Rheims, as ambassador from the French king. Thirty great ships were sent to bring him and his train over. When he entered the harbour at Dover, the king's brother, Humphrey duke of Gloucester, "and divers other lords, were ready to receive him: at his approaching to land, they entered the water sword in hand, and by the duke's mouth declared, that if he intended to enter the land as the king's friend, and as a mediator to entreat for peace, he should be suffered to

* 4 Hen. 5. c. 7.
+ Holinshed, iii. 72.

† Holinshed, iii. 68. Rymer, ix. 215, 216.
§ Ib. 84.

arrive; but if he came as an emperor to a land which he claimed to be under his empire, then were they ready to resist him. This was thought necessary to be done for saving of the king's prerogative, who hath full pre-eminence within his own realm as an absolute emperor. Sigismund's hope was to bring about in person what he had vainly attempted by negotiation,

[ocr errors]

a

league among all Christian princes for the defence of Christendom against the Turks. The danger was at that time not less serious than when the first crusade was undertaken; and Henry, whose mind had already been directed towards such an enterprise by his father's preparations, might, perhaps, have lent a willing ear to it, as he did to the mediation, if tidings had not, unhappily for France, arrived of some success which the earl of Armagnac had gained over the duke of Exeter, near Rouen, which so displeased him, that he would hear no word of peace. That anger, however, abated, and the emperor's representations seemed again to produce some effect. Meantime Armagnac, elated with his recent advantage, laid sudden siege to Harfleur; and the viscount of Narbonne, the vice-admiral of France, made an attempt upon it with his whole navy, thinking to have taken it by surprise: failing in this, the French laid close siege to the place, both by land and water. Exeter, while he defended the place manfully, found means to despatch a swift bark, with letters soliciting speedy relief; and Henry, it is said, would have embarked in person for the succour, if the emperor had not admonished him, that it was neither necessary nor honourable for a prince, on whom the whole weight and charge of the commonwealth rested, to adventure himself in every peril. Assenting to the wisdom of this advice, he appointed his brother, John duke of Bedford, to command the expedition: it consisted of 400 sail † ; and the earls of March, Oxford, Huntingdon, War

*Holinshed, iii. 85.

+Hardyng, 377. Hall says 200; but as the number of men is stated at 20,000, the larger number of ships, considering their probable size, is the more likely.

DEFEAT OF THE FRENCH FLEET.

55

wick, Arundel, Salisbury, and Devonshire embarked in it.*

[ocr errors]

They sailed from Rye, and, with a prosperous wind and a fresh gale," came to the mouth of the Seine, on the day of the Assumption of our Lady. Narbonne, seeing their approach, came boldly to encounter them at the entrance of the harbour. Upon this the English sent forward certain strong and well made ships, which captured two of the enemy, the French captains committing themselves rashly before their comrades could arrive to support them. The duke," says Hall, "followed incontinently with all his puissance, and, like a valiant captain, with great courage and audacity set on his enemies the fight was long, but not so long as perilous, nor so perilous as terrible; for battles of the sea be ever desperate, for neither the assailants nor defendants look for any refuge, nor know any back door how to scape out." In the end, almost all the whole French fleet, to the number of 500 ships, hulks, carracks, and small vessels, was taken or sunk: the largest of the prizes were three large Genoese carracks, which were sent to England. Harfleur was immediately relieved by the victorious fleet, and Armagnac raised the siege. The battle was fought on the 15th of August, and the fleet remained in the road somewhat more than three weeks afterwards, being becalmed there during the greater part of the time. The bodies which had been thrown overboard in the action, or sunk in the enemies' ships, rose and floated about them in great numbers; and the English may have deemed it a relief from the contemplation of that ghastly sight, to be kept upon the alert by some galleys, which, taking advantage of the calm, ventured as near them as they durst by day and night, and

[ocr errors]

* Hall, 73, 74.

"Armagnac, the constable," says Speed, "hearing how his consorts had kept tune on the cas, thought it not best to set to their note, lest his mean would not be he ru, the base of this music sounding too deep; and, therefore, he put up his pipes, and got him to Paris."-P. 635.

+ Hall, 75.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »