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