WEBVTT - Henry V (with Dan Jones) 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:04.640 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:09.360 and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. I am 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:11.680 so thrilled to be back with one of my all 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:15.680 time favorite writers and historians, Dan Jones, who just wrote 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:20.040 an incredible book on Henry the Fifth subhead The Astonishing 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:23.759 Triumph of England's Greatest Warrior King. Dan, thank you so 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:24.680 much for joining me. 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:27.000 Well, all I can say is I'm so happy to 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:30.880 be here again with one of my all time favorite writers. Astana. 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:31.720 How about that? 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:36.560 Oh God am pleasing. Well before we actually get into 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:40.199 the details of Henry the Fifth's life, which I confess 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:44.159 I did learn about mostly through Shakespeare when I was, 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:46.519 you know, in high school, so that's sort of my 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:50.320 earliest basis of understanding, I do want to ask you. 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:53.960 You say he's England's greatest warrior king. I've seen people 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:58.240 just say he's the greatest king, full stop, full period. 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:01.680 What do you think about Henry the Fifth in terms 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:03.640 of his ranking as a king? 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:10.120 Well, I think in the Middle Ages the later Middle Ages, certainly, 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.720 there was like a real clear set of things you 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:15.560 had to do, and it was quite a short set 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:17.520 of things you had to do, if not an easy 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:19.280 set of things you had to do to be like 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:24.400 the ideal of kingship and that of the English kingship, 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:28.360 and that was go and smash the French with a 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:31.399 view to taking their crown away from them, your crown 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:33.240 away from them, as you would have to put it 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:35.680 if you were the king, and make sure that your 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:39.720 subjects are given justice and provided with good rule. Those 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:42.200 are the two that's represented on the Great Seal of England. 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:44.120 King with a sword in hand on one side and 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:46.520 scales of justice on the other. That's the job. But 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:49.320 it's not that easy to do. Henry the Fifth manages 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:54.720 to do it to perfection, maybe even beyond perfection, on 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:59.000 both counts. But then it becomes quite difficult to rank 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:04.200 him in the overall scheme of English and British monarchy, 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:07.760 because is this the sort of king you would want 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.080 to succeed, for example, Charles the third, if we went 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:13.040 Charles the third, and then you have Henry the Fifth. 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:17.320 So a king who comes along who's absolutely convinced that 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:23.080 he is the embodiment of justice, that his overriding mission 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:27.639 is to project military might onto the kingdom's neighbors, that 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:33.800 religion and piety are everything that all heretics should be burned. 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:35.799 I don't think it's the sort of king who would 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:41.640 be successful in any age. But if we think about so, 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:44.960 that's I'm obviously being ridiculous. You can't just transport one 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.200 king to a different age, and we could then. But 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:51.880 what Henry was so brilliant at was understanding instinctively what 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:56.000 is the job right now, and how do I perform 0:02:56.080 --> 0:03:02.080 that job? So the only monarch I can really think 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:05.560 of who does this with such a plom is probably 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:10.800 Elizabeth Ion, who really understand this is what the monarchy 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:15.240 is supposed to be and has this sort of, in 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:18.720 a way self denying approach to it, which is, here 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:21.200 is the job, and I will I will subsume my 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:27.640 person into being this job. J always Elizabeth second did 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.360 it a really boring times. The job is to be 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:34.600 a sort of modern an effective modern monarch, is ready 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:38.280 to do as little as possible while looking amazing. 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:41.600 Just being a living mascot that people can project all 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:43.720 of their ideals of the empire onto. 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:46.480 Yes a little bit, you know, making trying not to 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:49.560 make any trouble, doing your best to stop your family 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:53.120 from making any trouble really being super willing to open 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:56.720 yet another shopping center or supermarket or hand out another medal. 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.160 I mean, that's so, it's I find it a bit 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:03.080 harder to get cited about that kind of monarchy than 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:05.040 I do about the late medieval monarchy. 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:09.680 It's also less dramatic than Asencore. Elizabeth the Second, for 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:13.800 all of her many accomplishments, never never led English troops 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:15.520 into victory against the French. 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:20.320 No, but I suppose if they swapped places. I suppose 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:22.320 he would be more effective in the other one's age, 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:25.960 would if we dropped Elizabeth II into the fifteenth century 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:28.360 and gave her the sort of all the training and upbring. Yeah, 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.919 she's pretty. She was a pretty competent individual, and Henry likewise. 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:34.880 But you're right, it's more dramatic. I think it's more 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:36.560 dramatic in the late fifteenth century. 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:41.320 Well, I think most of what people know about Henry's 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:45.440 personality obviously they know that, you know, the highlights, possibly 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:48.240 that he you know, he led the charge against the French, 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:54.119 amazing victory at agancorep one hundred years War. But most 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:56.800 of what maybe I'm projecting here, people believe of his 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:00.680 personality I think has been really shaped by Shakespeare. We 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:03.599 see Henry the Fifth as a young man, as sort 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:07.240 of a man enjoying the folly of his youth. But 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:09.560 how accurate sort of is that picture? 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.640 Well, the trouble with or maybe not the trouble. The 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.680 thing you always have to price in when you're doing 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:22.440 any kind of fifteenth century history in particular English fifteenth 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:25.080 century history in particular, is that you're always looking through 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:28.480 the lens of Shakespeare. And this is certainly true. I 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:30.240 remember when I was writing my book about the Walls 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:32.760 of the Roses years ago that it's the same then, 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:38.040 So Shakespeare, you would never wish away Shakespeare. Shakespeare was 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:40.760 the sort of the greatest genius ever to use the 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:45.520 English language. But his purposes in using the English language 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:48.400 were not to tell accurate historical stories. They were to 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:54.120 great great dramas, riffing off the fabric of English history. 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:59.240 And so he does that with you know, extraordinary effectiveness 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:01.360 in the case of Henry the Fifth. But it requires 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:04.720 some distortion. So if we take this Shakespearean character of 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:08.279 Henry the Fifth across the three plays in which he appears, 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:11.440 Henry fourth one too, and then Henry the Fifth so 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:15.080 we have Prince hal for a long time, and then 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:17.880 we have the King. And so Shakespeare's kind of dramatic 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:20.280 arc for Henry the Fifth is to go from sort 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:25.000 of roisterer playboy surrounded by youthful intimates who are already 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:30.520 inappropriate to the gravitas of office, who sort of sheds 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.279 this like a like a snake skin at the moment 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:37.360 of his coronation and just in time and emerges as 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:42.119 a completely different, much more serious character who's who's ready 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.200 to assume the burden of kingship and yet still retains 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.560 just enough of the common touch to bring his soldiers 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:52.480 along with him. Think that's a really brilliant dramatic arc, 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:56.000 but in order to create it out of the sort 0:06:56.000 --> 0:07:00.320 of malleable play doh of history, you have to really 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:03.760 squeeze away at Henry's youth, and you have to take 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:10.440 a couple of fleeting references, really oblique references from sources 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:14.720 pertaining to Henry's younger years, and you have to really 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:18.480 really lean into those to make the character prince. How 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:22.240 you know, the actual historical evidence for this sort of 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:26.000 roistering youth, you know, womanizing, hard drinking, the sort of 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:28.160 person I like to hang around with when I'm out 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:33.280 in the pub. This is this is really at odds 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:35.760 with with most of what we know about the real 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:39.920 young Henry as Prince of Wales. Not that that story 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:43.480 is uninteresting, but it's just not it's not Prince Hal. 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:50.040 Henry in the play Henry the Fifth is drawn somewhat 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.360 closer to life. There are there is this sort of 0:07:53.480 --> 0:08:01.440 the the ruthlessness, the the the mastery of the vernacular, 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:03.840 you know, the ability to communicate in English in a 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:07.040 way that would touch high and low together, this sense 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:11.840 of camaraderie in the face of battle. There's more to 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:16.400 Henry and Henry the Fifth than there is in historical 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:19.000 times than there is in Prince how But you know, 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:23.720 it's tempting, as it is to judge Shakespeare's historical accuracy. 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:26.880 It is something of a category era. Shakespeare was never 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:29.640 in the business of being judged on historical accuracy. It 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.680 was about getting people into theaters to watch a a 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:36.240 great show. Right, it's not the same thing. 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:40.360 So then let's talk a little bit about historical accuracy. 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:43.880 What was the real Prince Hal like as a young man? 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:46.559 To the best of our understanding. 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.560 He was born in the Gatehouse of Monmouth Castle in 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:56.360 thirteen eighty six, as the firstborn son of the greatest 0:08:56.400 --> 0:09:00.480 noble house in the realm, the House of Lancaster. Grandfather 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:02.679 was John of Gaunt. His father was Henry Bollingbrook, who 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:06.920 was at that time a paragon of chivalry, a generous, polite, 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:14.200 good looking, handsome, dashing nobleman, famous across Europe as a 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:18.720 great jouster, famous as as a crusader, famous as a 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:22.240 pilgrim who had actually been to Jerusalem, a great gift giver, 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.240 you know. So Henry grows up and he has his 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:30.120 mother married a boone artistic literary musical. So he grows 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:33.440 up as a sort of quite sophisticated, extremely privileged young man. 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:38.720 But his life is thrown into turmoil relatively young when 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.599 his father Bolingbrook falls out with Bollingbrook's first cousin, the 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.120 King Richard the Second, and is banished, and that famous 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:48.240 scene from probably best known from Shakespeare's play Richard the Second, 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:52.680 the duel at Coventry stopped dramatically by Richard, who then 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:57.240 sends Bollingbrook off into exile. From this point on, Henry 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:03.720 as a youth is somewhat tossed from pillar to post, 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:07.080 he falls under feels briefly under the wing of Richard 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:09.920 the Second himself, and is taken off to Ireland as 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:13.120 part as hostage, but sort of part as apprentice really 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:17.000 of Richard the Second, and is treated very kindly by 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:19.160 Richard the Second. And I believe, and I argue in 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.640 my book that Henry is taught a lot, or certainly 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.640 gleans a lot from his experience with Richard the Second. 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.880 He strikes me as a and we can only infer 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:32.280 this really from his later action, But the young Henry 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:35.720 strikes me as a sponge. He's a great learner. He absorbs, 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:38.320 you know, when he's when he's a captive. When he's 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:41.200 close to Richard the Second, both in his court and 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:43.600 as a captive, he seems to just he seems to 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:50.040 suck up the best things that Richard Richard's kingship has 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:52.240 to offer. There aren't many of them, but the one 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.080 that Richard the Second has above almost every other medieval 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:59.240 king is a mastery of spectacle, of performance of majesty. 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:01.640 And we can see later in Henry the fifth life 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:05.560 and Reign that he's watched and he's learned, and he's 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:09.480 able to put that into action. Later, when Henry's father, 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:13.440 Henry Bolingbrook becomes King Henry the Fourth, the young Henry 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:17.839 is put to work. He's taken on military campaign to Scotland. 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:21.680 He sees the logistics of a campaign and he seems 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.240 to absorb them very effectively. He's sent off to Ireland 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:25.920 as Prince of Wales to put down the rebellion of 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:31.280 Englendor and he learns very quickly from his mentors there, 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:36.080 people like Hotspur, the future rebel but brilliant military commander. 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:39.240 He learns how to deal with a siege. He learns 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.800 how to deploy cannon, he learns good ratios of men 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:45.400 at arms to archers. We have a wonderful letter when 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:49.520 he's about fifteen years old, says Prince Henry written back 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:53.160 to his father who's tasked him with sorting out the 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.280 great Welsh rebel and would be Prince of Wales Owain Glendour, 0:11:56.960 --> 0:11:58.880 and he says, I've heard this is young Henry. He says, 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:01.160 I've heard Glendour has been putting it around that he 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:06.640 wants a fight. So Dad, I went, I said, if 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:08.280 you want to fight, I'm going to give you a fight. 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:10.160 So I went off into Wales and I looked for him, 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:12.360 but he wasn't there and he couldn't find me. So 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:14.360 I went round his house. I mean he literally went 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:18.080 round the guy's house. He wasn't in, so I burned 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.959 his house down and sort of trashed all his lands. 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:23.880 I went to his other house. He wasn't there either. 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:26.079 One of his mates was his mate, said oh, spare me, 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:28.000 spare me, I'll give you five hundred quid. So I 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:31.600 cut his head off and now I'm back. Hope you're well. 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:33.320 Lots of love Henry, and he. 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:35.800 Would have been what about fifteen or sixteen at this. 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:41.320 Time, precisely. Yeah. By the time he's sixteen, he's regarded 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:43.880 by his father as fit to lead the rearguards at 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.920 the Battle of Shrewsbury, you know, a massive battle fought 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:51.079 against the rebellious Percy family in which Henry fights and 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:55.880 is terribly wounded. In fact, so he is I think 0:12:55.880 --> 0:13:01.559 he learns. He's intelligent. He has a an instinctive taste 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:06.960 for combat and the knightly and military arts. So this 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:09.880 is the the kid that grows up and that's you know, 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:13.319 that's a pretty good set of skills if you're going 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:15.199 to become a warrior king of England. 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:18.200 So now just to back up a little bit for 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:21.480 context for listeners who might be less familiar with this 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:25.000 period of history, it doesn't sound quite as much like 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:28.920 Henry the fourth his father was as invested in sort 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.640 of reigniting the one hundred Years War with France. But 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:36.240 that's something that Henry the Fifth really takes on when 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:39.400 he becomes king. Can you talk a little bit about 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.640 that conflict and why Henry the Fifth was so motivated 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:43.840 to fight in France. 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:46.400 Yeah? Absolutely, I mean, let's let's do a really quick 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:50.599 one hundred years War one oh one. So in the 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:56.319 thirteen late thirteen thirties, Henry, this grandfather, King Edward the third, 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:59.120 had the opportunity. 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:00.880 To pitch great grandfather. 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:03.800 Great grandfather. Yeah, how the opportunity to pitch his claim 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.000 to be the king of France as well as the 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:11.199 King of England. Edward the third, So he says, right, 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:13.360 I'm the rightful King of France and he goes off 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.480 to fight the French for this. Now the central question, 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:19.800 this becomes important, very vitally important Henry fifth reign. So 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.080 I'll delay us just briefly here does Edward the third 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.280 mean what he says or is claiming to be King 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:29.400 of France, just a negotiating tactic to get England a 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:34.240 better deal in its existing French possessions in the southwest 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.400 around Bordeaux. Call it Gascony. It's the sort of the 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:41.320 dowdoin areas where lots of English people today have second homes. Hmmm, 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:44.560 good question. Certainly, it's never They never have to deal 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:46.480 with it head on. During Edward the Third's reign, there 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:48.520 are many great successes. The bad Ler Cressie, the bad 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:50.960 la Poitier, they take the French king prisoner. They force 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:53.400 this great deal in thirteen sixty, the Treaty of Bretigny, 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:59.040 where there's a settlement between English and French. Now this 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:02.360 doesn't stop the hundred years War. It rumbles on because 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:06.000 nobody's happy. The English want more territory, the French want 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:07.200 them to have less territory. 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:10.320 So at this point the English have the hold on 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:13.360 sort of the southwest of what is modern day France. 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:16.400 That's not the quote unquote Kingdom of France, which was 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:16.920 its own. 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.160 Not the Kingdom of France, and not other lands that 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:25.120 historically this English dynasty, the Plantagenets had held Normandy for 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:30.600 one the few others a main the terrain Quartu Brittany, 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:35.280 but critically Normandy in the north. So there was still 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:37.800 a reason to keep fighting if you wanted to fight. Now, 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:41.440 under the reign of Richard the Second, that's Edward the 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:46.360 Third's grandson and successor, England has a king who does 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:49.520 not want to fight. Richard the Second has no desire 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:51.800 to fight the hundred Years War whatsoever, and he does 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.680 everything he can to to try and force a peace. 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:59.560 This is not particularly popular in England because although there's 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.200 a great war weariness, as a sort of a bitterness 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:05.200 towards the levels of taxation that have to be paid, there's, 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:09.160 you know, there's still a sort of sense that the 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:11.920 war is not finished. It hasn't been one. There are 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:13.880 reasons to keep fighting. There are lots of hawks who 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:17.280 think that the fighting should continue. Now. When you get 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:22.600 to the reign of Henry the Fourth and Henry the Fifth, 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:26.760 circumstances in France have changed somewhat. The French are in 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:29.320 the middle of what becomes their own wars at the Roses. 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:33.640 This owes its genesis to the madness of King Charles 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:36.880 the sixth of France who in thirteen ninety two has 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:41.520 a sort of complete psychotic episode and the psycholog subsequent 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.760 psychological breakdown. He drifts in and out of madness for 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:45.760 the rest of his life. 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:49.720 For listeners who just are trying to put these pieces together, 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:54.000 I've done and we've done episodes on Charles the sixth, 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.520 the France who goes mad and stabs his men, his 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.880 own men while sort of out on a So if 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:03.920 that sounds familiar, that's who we're talking about now. 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.080 Right, this is the mad and then he subsequently believes 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:09.160 he's made of glass, he's on fire the whole time, 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:11.120 he doesn't remember his name. He runs about his palaces 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:13.240 smearings and feces on the walls and so on and 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:16.560 so forth. I'm sure you've delved right into that detail 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:19.159 in previous episodes. Dane Er, I can't imagine you skating up. 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.040 I did try to get avoid the feces, but thank 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:24.560 you for reminding me how important that was. 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:26.800 One of my rules in life is avoid the feces. 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:30.879 But it's not always possible as well. His parenthood has 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:35.359 taught me so anyway. So by the time you get 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:38.840 to Henry the fourth throw Francis dissolving into civil war 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.080 between two factions called it the French Wars, the Roses 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:44.480 but Gundians against Armoniacs. Henry the fifth comes to the 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:54.440 throne in fourteen thirteen with the Constitution and the inclination 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:58.359 to go and fight this war. He believes that the French, 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:01.119 that by rights the French crown should be his. He 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.320 really buys into his great grandfather Edward the Third's claim. 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:10.439 He has had a robust training as a warrior and 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:13.640 as a leader of men fighting o angl Durd in Wales, 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:19.840 that war eventually to be successful. During his father's waning years, 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:21.880 when his own father, that's Henry the fourth of England, 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:27.959 descends into real physical decrepitude, Henry has run the council, 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:31.080 so he's rolled up his sleeves and learned how to 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:37.600 finance government, how to negotiate, how to lead politically. So 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:40.919 he's ready for the challenge of going and pursuing this 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:44.640 English claim in France. And he's also got the blessed 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.720 circumstances if you're the English king of the French being 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:52.320 murderously at one another's throats and hopelessly politically divided, and 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:56.280 if you like therefore the taking. So that's the situation 0:18:56.440 --> 0:19:01.119 in fourteen thirteen fourteen and Henry's year of Glory fourteen 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:03.359 fifteen when the Battle of agion Courp takes place. 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:08.560 And then the Battle of Agincourp obviously is incredibly famous, 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:11.960 especially famous because we get one of Shakespeare's best speeches. 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:15.080 But can you actually talk about what the setup of 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:18.760 that battle was and what Henry did to make it 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:21.880 such a resounding and surprising English victory. 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:26.840 Well, surprising is definitely the right word. This is Henry's 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:32.680 first campaign to France. He's been king for roughly two years. 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:35.160 He's decided he's going to go fight this because he's 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:38.320 been taunted by the Dauphin, one of the sons of 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:43.239 Charles the sixth, and that he has decided he's going 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:47.440 to go and fight, so he raises an army. There 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:49.840 is some doubt in England as to whether this is 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:51.960 going to be a success. On the eve of campaign 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:56.120 there's a rebellion or attempted coup against him, which fails. 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.240 So he sails to France with a lot riding on 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:04.040 this he lands near our Fleur and besieges the coastal 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:09.040 city of our Fleur, and that's a long siege which 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:13.560 heavily depletes his army. Disease runs around his camp, but 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:16.000 it's ultimately successful. He takes the city of our Flur, 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:20.800 and this is in itself a great victory. The English 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:23.919 had in previous generations taken Calais, so that was an 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:26.480 English possession. This is going to be another Calais, a 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:31.240 great mercantile city, a very useful sort of beachhead bridgehead 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:34.040 if they want to launch more campaigns. It's a real achievement. 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:37.800 But at the time that the siege of our Flur 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:40.119 is one, Henry seems to think that it's not enough. 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:44.080 Everybody in his high command says, we've lost too many men, 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:48.280 high ranking and low ranking. That's too late in the season. 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:51.000 Let's just cut our loss well, it's culor losses. Let's 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:52.920 be happy with what we've got and go home and regroup. 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.399 And Henry says no, He says, we need to do 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:58.760 one more thing now. It's too late in the season 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:02.240 to go besiege another city. He hasn't got enough men, money, 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:05.760 morale is running low because of disease, so he goes 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:10.400 for the sort of cheapest, most effective option. He says, 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:12.679 I'm going to take I'm going to take men with 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:16.600 provisions for about a week, and we're going to run. 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:19.800 We're going to run north from our flur through the 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:22.879 Norman countryside as fast as we can, and we're going 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:25.080 to get to Calais, the other English possession, and we're 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:27.480 going to go home from there. Now, why do that? 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:32.000 That's mad, or so it seems. But part of the 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:37.399 one of the most important tactics in war in this age, 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:41.679 in foreign war in this age, is to prove to 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:44.200 the people of the realm on which you're making war 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:48.040 that their own king can't protect them. And so what 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:51.920 Henry's doing in running north from our flur to Calais 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:55.359 is saying, look at this, I can go wherever I 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:57.720 want in this kingdom, which by the way, is my kingdom, 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:00.760 and your king can't do anything to stop me. It's 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:03.159 the equivalent of just running down the street, knocking on 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:06.320 everyone's door and sort of flicking them the bird as 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:06.760 you run. 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:10.920 So it's more of a propaganda campaign than a military campaign. 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:12.600 Yeah, and it's going to be cheap and it's going 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:14.600 to be fast, because he reckons he can do it, 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:16.439 and it's the only take provisions for a week. He 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:17.919 thinks he's going to be there in a week, and 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:20.439 at a fast march he should have been. But the 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:26.000 problem is they get stuck. They get stuck trying to cross. 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:28.320 You've got across a lot of rivers as well, and 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:30.680 get around a lot of towns to make this journey. 0:22:30.880 --> 0:22:33.000 And they make it sort of half of the way. 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:36.239 And then the French, who have really not got their 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:39.919 act together at Harfleur, finally do get their act semi together, 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:43.359 raise a big army and they enter into a foot race. 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:47.720 They start chasing the English and the two armies collide 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:53.480 on at the end of October fourteen fifteen near Agencole 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:57.600 hasn't called the little village, and Henry is forced to fight. 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:00.000 He doesn't want to fight, but he's ready to fight 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:04.040 if he has to. This wasn't the plan, but it's 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:06.080 you know, there is always going to be a gamble, 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:08.159 and now it's upon him. He's got to do it. 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:12.399 So as in cour is a great test, it's a 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:15.560 great test militarily because the English have a fewer men, 0:23:15.960 --> 0:23:18.920 they have archers rather than men at nights dominating their army. 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:23.160 The French have more men. They have knights dominating their army. 0:23:23.640 --> 0:23:26.639 That's not so weird. I mean, both sides know what 0:23:26.760 --> 0:23:30.040