A famous scene in Henry the Fifth represents two English prelates consulting together how they may best put aside the imminent demand of the Commons for a secularisation of a great part of the Church revenues. The clergy were to be stripped of what would maintain fifteen earls, fifteen hundred knights, and six thousand or more esquires, besides lazar-houses and poor-houses, and still have a “thousand pounds by the year” for the coffers of the King. Such a spoliation would not only “drink deep,” as the Bishop of Ely says, but, as his brother of Canterbury replies, “drink the cup and all.” The King’s new-born piety would not be a sufficient protection against this danger. Nor would it be averted even by the offer of a greater sum by way of contribution than the clergy had ever offered to any one of his predecessors. A more potent help would be found in the suggestion,

We are not called upon to discuss the historical foundation for this story. The chroniclers of the sixteenth century probably put something of the feelings which were dominant in their own times into their narratives of the earlier age. But the movement which culminated in the action of Henry the Eighth was then beginning. The wealth of the Church was certainly overgrown and often ill-applied. Cupidity it was sure to excite; but wise and honourable statesmen also regarded it with dislike as an influence adverse to the national prosperity. But to suppose that the ecclesiastical authorities could stifle these feelings by forcing, so to speak, upon the nation a war to which it was averse or even indifferent is to contradict all the analogies of history.

It would be equally erroneous to suppose that Henry himself was driven to embark in war by a feeling of the insecurity of his position, and by the desire to conceal by the glory of his military achievements the weakness of his title to the throne. Still it is true that the claim to the French crown was the heritage of the Plantagenets, and that Henry was compelled to assert it if he would show himself the authentic representative of the second Henry and the third Edward.

For some time after William of Normandy seized the English throne the relations of the King of England to the King of France—it might be more correct to say, the king who reigned at Paris—were those of an over-powerful vassal to a weak suzerain. When Henry the Second actually ruled over a larger part of France than the prince who was nominally its sovereign, this reversal of the ordinary state of things, according to which the lord was the superior, the vassal the inferior, was complete. But the tendency of things was to strengthen the central power at Paris, and to weaken the great feudatories. The English kings could not retain a permanent hold on their continental possessions. In the course of the forty-three years’ reign of Philip Augustus the vast French territory held by Henry the Second was reduced to the provinces of Gascony and Guienne, from more than a half to less than a tenth of the whole country.

Without following in detail the events of the next hundred years, we may say that their tendency was to separate the two countries more and more completely, and to prepare the way for the change in their relations which may be held to date from the year 1327. In that year the last of the three sons of Philip the Fair died childless. Edward the Third of England, as the son of Philip’s daughter Isabella, put forward a claim to the succession as against Philip of Valois, who, as descended from a common grandfather, Philip the Hardy, was his first cousin.5 This claim he attempted to enforce by the invasion which began with the brilliant victories of Crecy and Poictiers, and reached a certain measure of success in the Treaty of Bretigny (1360). But before many years had passed, all but Calais was lost to England; and when Henry the Fifth resolved to recover what he claimed as the inheritance of his predecessors, he had to begin, it may be said, the work of conquest over again.

Allies, however, he had whose assistance he was to find very useful. The dynasty of De Montfort had been established in possession of the dukedom of Britanny in a great measure by English help, and though the relations between the two countries had not been invariably friendly since that time, the sense of this obligation, and, still more powerfully, a jealous fear of the French king, inclined Britanny to the English alliance.

The Dukes of Burgundy, though they had no such motives of gratitude towards England, felt a far stronger hostility towards France. The feud between the rival factions which went by the names of Burgundians and Armagnacs had now been raging for several years; and though the attitude of the Burgundians varied—at the great struggle of Agincourt they were allies, though lukewarm and even doubtful allies, of the French—they ultimately ranked themselves decidedly on Henry’s side.

In 1414, then, Henry formally demanded, as the heir of Isabella, mother of his great-grandfather Edward, the crown of France. This claim the French princes wholly refused to consider. Henry then moderated his demands so far, at least, as to allow Charles to remain in nominal possession of his kingdom; but they were still conceived on a scale such as to render their acceptance impossible. France was to cede to England, no longer as a feudal superior making a grant to a vassal, but in full sovereignty, the provinces of Normandy, Maine, and Anjou, together with all that was comprised in the ancient duchy of Aquitaine. Half, too, of Provence was claimed, and the arrears of the ransom of King John, amounting to twelve hundred thousand crowns, were also to be paid. Finally, the French king was to give his youngest daughter, Katharine, in marriage to Henry, with a portion of two million crowns.6

The French Ministers offered, in answer, to yield the duchy of Aquitaine, comprising the provinces of Anjou, Gascony, Guienne, and Poitou, and to give the hand of the Princess Katharine with a dowry of six hundred thousand crowns, more, it was urged, than any daughter of France had ever before received on the occasion of her marriage.

These offers were refused. On September 17th (1414) writs were issued calling together a new Parliament to meet on November 19th at Westminster. The King was present, but what we should call the Royal Speech was delivered by Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor. In this the speaker declared, not only that the King was resolved to govern his realm wisely, but that he would prosecute even to death his claim to the rightful inheritance, so long withheld from him and his predecessors, of the crown of France. That he might do this with success, the Commons were exhorted to grant a liberal subsidy. They voted, with the assent of the peers and the clergy, two-tenths and two-fifteenths.7 The scrupulous side of Henry’s character, which seems to have been not less developed than what may be described as the ambitious side, would not be satisfied without another attempt at negotiation. His uncle, the Earl of Dorset, afterwards Duke of Exeter, accompanied by the Bishops of Durham and Norwich, and a retinue so splendidly equipped as to excite the astonishment of the French, visited Paris with a new offer. Normandy and Maine were no longer to be claimed: the dowry of the Princess was to be reduced from two to one million crowns; but the duchy of Aquitaine and a portion of Provence were still demanded. The French Ministers declined to yield in the matter of the territory, but were willing to raise their offer of a dowry from six to eight hundred thousand crowns. These terms were, of course, unacceptable, and the ambassadors returned to England.

One more effort for peace was made, and this time the overture came from France. It may be conveniently mentioned in this place, though it was not made till the preparations for war were considerably advanced, and indeed was called forth by the alarming report of the fleet and army which the English king was mustering that had been carried across the Channel.

On the 29th of June the King, being present in a council held at Winchester, granted seven safe-conducts to the ambassadors of “our adversary of France [for so, in view of his own claim, he now styles the French king] about to come into the realm on account of certain matters manifestly concerning the honour of God and the staying of the shedding of human blood.” The principal ambassador was Thomas, Archbishop of Bruges. Another high ecclesiastic, three nobles, and two lawyers accompanied him. The mission was on a splendid scale, for the united retinues numbered three hundred and fifty. Henry received them at Winchester.

The Archbishop of Bruges set forth his mission in a long and eloquent oration. After a preliminary dissuasion of war and praise of peace, he proceeded to offer terms: Limoges and its dependencies were to be ceded to the English crown, and another hundred thousand crowns to be added to the Princess’s dowry.

On the question of money a compromise had been nearly reached. The English demand had been reduced to a million crowns, and the French offer raised to nine hundred thousand. As to territory, the difference was hopelessly wide. Limoges and its dependencies was a poor country, which it would not be worth while to accept. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the accomplished Chicheley, was spokesman for the King. He made no mention of dowry, but declared that if the French king would not give with his daughter Aquitaine, Anjou, and all that had ever appertained to the ancestors of the King of England, the said King would in no wise “retire his army nor break his journey, but would with all diligence enter into France, and destroy the people, waste the country, and subvert the towns with blood, sword, and fire, and never cease till he had recovered his ancient right and lawful patrimony.” When Chicheley sat down, the King stood up and declared his assent to what he had said, and promised on the word of a prince to perform it to the uttermost.

It was evident that he was bent on war. The concessions made by his own ambassadors had been taken back, and the conditions now demanded amounted to nothing less than a partition of France. At the beginning of the negotiations these had been put forward, in a not uncommon fashion of diplomacy, as a maximum from which it might be convenient to make large deductions; as an ultimatum, delivered by a sovereign whose army was almost ready to sail, they meant nothing less than war.

And so the Archbishop of Bruges took them. Casting aside diplomatic forms, he broke forth into an angry denunciation of English arrogance and injustice, and warned the King of the danger into which he was running. Finally, he demanded a safe-conduct to return; a mere form of speech, as such a safe-conduct was included in that already given to him and his colleagues.

English chroniclers call him “a proud and presumptuous prelate,” yet his anger was nothing but natural. Henry did not resent it, though he did not retreat one whit from his position. The safe-conduct he granted, and then added (I quote the speech as it is given by Hollingshead):

“I little esteem your French brass, and less set by your power and strength; I know perfectly my right to my reign which you usurp; and except you deny the apparent truth, so do yourselves also; if you neither do nor will know it, yet God and the world knoweth it. The power of your master you see, but my puissance ye have not yet tasted. If he have loving subjects, I am (I thank God) not unstored of the same; and I say this unto you, that before one year pass, I trust to make the highest crown of your country to stoop, and the proudest mitre to have his humiliation. In the meantime tell this to the usurper your master, that within three months I will enter into France, as into mine own true and lawful patrimony, appointing to acquire the same, not with bray of words, but with deeds of men and dint of sword, by the aid of God, in whom is my whole trust and confidence. Further matter at this present I impart not unto you, saving that with warrant you may depart safely and surely into your own country, where I trust sooner to visit you than you shall have cause to bid me welcome.”

We can hardly suppose that we have here Henry’s very words. The speech has a certain rhetorical, antithetical cast that inclines us to attribute it to the pen of a chronicler who, we may conjecture further, was writing in Latin. But it probably represents the substance of the King’s reply with sufficient accuracy.

Nothing more in the way of negotiation could be done. It only remained to press forward the preparations for war.