On May 21st Queen Katherine landed at Harfleur with her infant son. She was accompanied by a brilliant court, and by the Duke of Bedford, who had been summoned to join his brother, now feeling, we may suppose, a pressing need of the assistance of his military skill. The Queen journeyed from Harfleur on to Rouen, and from Rouen to Vincennes, where Henry met her. Their entry into Paris was magnificent. It was noticed that the English queen had two mantles of ermine borne before her carriages, to mark, it was supposed, her dignity as Queen of England and France. Charles was at that time also in Paris, and it was again noticed that it was the English court rather than the French that formed the centre of attraction. Meanwhile Henry was winning good opinion from the commonalty by his just and moderate government, and especially by his exact and impartial administration of justice, a new thing in a country where privilege was always so powerful. On June 22nd Henry and his Queen left Paris for Senlis. He was soon again in the capital to inquire into the circumstances of a plot which had been discovered for the delivery of the city into the hands of the Dauphin; and it was after his second return to Senlis that his health began manifestly to fail. Of the nature of his illness we are not exactly informed. Monstrelet says that it was St. Anthony’s fire or erysipelas; other accounts speak of a fistula and pleurisy; in Walsingham the cause of death is given as “a sharp fever with vehement dysentery.” Henry did not come of a long-lived race. His great-grandfather indeed reached an age (sixty-five) which, though often since exceeded, had only once before been reached by an English king; but his grandfather—the “time-honoured Lancaster” of Shakespeare—had died, worn out, at fifty-eight; his father, after years of suffering, expired at forty-seven; and his mother died in her twenty-fifth year.
Cosne-sur-Loire, a walled city belonging to the Duke of Burgundy, had been besieged by the Dauphin, and had agreed to capitulate unless relieved before August 6th. The Duke sent for help to Flanders and Picardy, and, of course, to King Henry. The King replied that he would come in person, and bring his whole army with him. The army marched out of its quarters in Paris and its environs, and Henry, after taking leave of his wife, whom indeed he never saw again, started from Senlis to join it. He was able to ride as far as Melun, where he exchanged the saddle for a litter, intending to overtake the army; but his illness increased so rapidly that he was compelled to give up his purpose. He handed over the command to the Duke of Bedford, and was carried to the Bois de Vincennes. There he took to his bed, from which he never rose again.
He seems to have been aware that his days were numbered. The Dukes of Bedford and Exeter, the Earl of Warwick, and some four or five more of his most trusted counsellors were called to his bedside. To his brother John he said: “My good brother, I beseech you, on the loyalty and love you have ever expressed for me, that you show the same loyalty and affection to my son Henry, your nephew.” He then gave him directions as to the policy he was to pursue. Monstrelet professes to give the dying man’s exact words, but at this point they are obscure and even contradictory. The Duke of Burgundy was to have the Regency of France, if he wished for it; otherwise his brother was to take it himself. Then, turning to his uncle, he said: “My good uncle of Exeter, I nominate you sole Regent of the kingdom of England, for that you well know how to govern it; and I likewise nominate you as guardian to my son; and I insist, on your love to me, that very often you personally visit and see him.” To the Earl of Warwick his words were: “My dear cousin of Warwick, I will that you be his governor, and that you teach him all things becoming his rank, for I cannot provide a fitter person for the purpose.”
Then followed some advice as to the management of affairs. Above all things, dissension with the Duke of Burgundy must be avoided; and this was especially impressed on his brother Humphrey, whose relations with the Duke were not friendly. Unless they could keep on good terms with him, everything would be ruined. The princes of the French royal family whom they had in custody were on no account to be released.
After an interview with Sir Hugh de Lannoy, who had come to him on a mission from the Duke of Burgundy, Henry began to prepare for his end. He sent for his physicians, and asked them how long they thought he had to live. They were naturally unwilling to tell him the truth, and endeavoured to evade the question: “It depended solely,” they said, “on the will of God whether he should be restored to health.” The King, dissatisfied with this answer, repeated his question, and commanded them to tell him the actual truth. They consulted together. Then one of them, whom they had appointed their spokesman, fell on his knees by the bedside and said: “Sire, you must think on your soul; for, unless it be the will of God to decree otherwise, it is impossible that you should live more than two hours.”
On hearing this, Henry sent for his confessor. He made his confession, and received the last sacraments of the Church. He then bade his chaplains recite the seven penitential Psalms. When in chanting the fifty-first they came to the words “Build Thou the walls of Jerusalem,” he interrupted them and said aloud that he had fully intended, after wholly subduing the realm of France and restoring it to peace, to conquer the kingdom of Jerusalem. The priests went on with their devotions. In the midst of them he cried out again, as if addressing some invisible adversary, “Thou liest, thou liest; my part is with the Lord Jesus”; then with a still louder voice, “In manus tuas, Domine”—and so breathed his last. The day of his death was the last day of August. He had just completed his thirty-fourth year.
The body was embalmed and placed in a coffin of lead. From Vincennes it was first taken in great pomp, attended by the English princes, his household, and a multitude of the people, to the Church of Notre-Dame in Paris, where a solemn service was performed over it. From Paris it was removed with the same state to Rouen.
At Rouen, Queen Katherine, who had been kept in ignorance of her husband’s perilous condition, waited with the corpse till affairs were sufficiently settled to allow of the return of the princes to England. This was not for some weeks, and it must have been about the beginning of November when the funeral procession set out. The route was through Abbeville, Hesdin, Montreuil, and Boulogne to Calais.
The coffin was placed on a car drawn by four magnificent horses. Above it was an effigy of the King, worked in leather, beautifully painted, with a crown of gold upon the head. The right hand held a sceptre; the left a golden ball; the face looked up to the heavens. The effigy lay on a mattress, on which was a coverlet of vermilion silk interwoven with beaten gold. When it passed through any town a canopy of silk, like that which is borne over the Host on Corpus Christi Day, was carried over it by men of rank. The King of Scots followed as chief mourner; with him were Henry’s kinsmen, the English nobles in France, and the officers of his household; at the distance of a league behind followed the Queen with her ladies. The first halt was at the Church of St. Wolfran in Abbeville; there the coffin rested awhile, while rows of priests on either side chanted requiems unceasingly day and night. In every town through which the procession passed, masses were daily said from break of day to noon for the dead man’s soul. From Calais the body was transported to Dover. From Dover it was carried through Canterbury and Rochester to London, which was reached on Martinmas Day (November 11th). As it approached the city it was met by fifteen bishops clad in their episcopal robes, a number of mitred abbots and other dignified ecclesiastics, and a vast multitude of people of all ranks. The service for the dead was chanted as the car passed over London Bridge, down Lombard Street, to St. Paul’s Cathedral. The adornment of the horses which drew it was notably significant. On the collar of the first were emblazoned the ancient arms of England; on that of the second, the arms of France and England quartered—these the late King had borne in his lifetime, as a solemn claim to the double crown; the third showed the arms of France simply; the fourth the traditionary bearings of the invincible Arthur—for, like him, Henry had never been vanquished in the field—three crowns or on a field azure. After a great service in St. Paul’s the body was transferred to its final resting-place in Westminster. Preparations on a scale and of a kind such as had never before been thought of were there made for its reception. The relics hitherto preserved at the extreme eastern end of the Confessor’s Chapel were removed from their place, to make room for the body of the great King. Over the spot was raised a chantry, where masses were to be offered up for ever for his soul, and an altar built in honour of the Annunciation. For a year thirty poor persons were to recite there the Psalter of the Virgin, adding to it in English the words, “Mother of God, remember thy servant Henry, who putteth his whole trust in thee!” The masses have long since ceased to be said; but the chapel with its elaborate sculptures still remains to show the reverence in which the pious soldier was held—reverence such, writes Monstrelet, “as if it were certain he was a saint in Paradise.” The shape of the chapel is that of the first letter of his name. Among the statues which adorn it are those of St. George of England and St. Denis of France, the two kingdoms which for a time at least he had united; and the sculptures represent the scenes of his life, his coronation, and his victories in France. The shield and the helmet that are still to be seen above the tomb belong indeed to Henry’s time, but are not, as they have been represented to be, his actual arms, having been furnished by the undertaker as part of the funeral equipment. On the tomb below may still be seen the image of the King, but sadly stripped of its ancient splendour. For the leather effigy which was carried from Rouen to London was substituted, as a more permanent memorial, a figure cut out of heart of oak, covered with silver-gilt and with a head of solid silver. These ornaments were too tempting for the cupidity of some of his degenerate countrymen. Sepulchrum modicum et mansurum is the terse phrase of Tacitus, but Henry’s tomb did not fulfil the condition. Two teeth of gold were carried off in the reign of Edward the Fourth, and the silver was stolen at the time of the Dissolution. Had it been wrought of humbler stone or alabaster, it might not have been the headless effigy which stirred the wrath of Addison, and still rebukes us with the thought of to what meanness humanity can descend.
The author of the curious Versus Rhythmici de Henrico Quinto has given us an elaborate description of the King’s personal appearance. The name of this writer is unknown, but it is clear from many of the expressions that he uses that he was a Westminster monk who held some office in the royal household. Henry’s head, he tells us, was spherical, his forehead smooth (planus), an epithet which may possibly mean not receding. These two characteristics were, in his view, signs of intelligence; whether he is right or wrong in his generalisation, we may gather that Henry had an intelligent aspect. His hair was brown, thick, and smooth: here the writer uses again the epithet plani, for want, it would seem, of a more convenient word; he was moving, it should be said, in the very cramping fetters of Leonine verse. His nose was straight, and his face long (extensus): he had, that is, the oval face so characteristic of the great Englishmen of a later age, the golden time of Elizabeth. His complexion was bright (floridus is the word used, but “florid” would give a false impression): his eyes clear and brilliant, opening wide, with a reddish tinge in them (if this is the true translation of subrufe patentes); they were the eyes of a dove when he was not provoked, of a lion when he was stirred with anger. His teeth were white as snow and evenly set; his ears small and well shaped; his chin divided (fissum, meaning that it had a noticeable indentation); his neck of a becoming thickness, and fair; his cheeks flat (non inflatÆ is the phrase, meaning that they were not “puffy,” as were the cheeks of Henry the Eighth) and of a good colour, and his lips of a vermilion hue. His limbs were strongly and handsomely formed, with bones and sinews firmly knit together. The chronicler Hall gives a description which is substantially the same: “He was of stature more than the common sort, of body lean, well-membered and strongly made, a face beautiful, somewhat long-necked, black haired.” Black as the colour of his hair is doubtless a mistake for brown, the epithet used by the contemporary chronicler.
The author of this description goes on to relate the royal virtues. Henry was regular in his attendance at mass, which he heard in his private closet, diligently abstracting his mind at the time from worldly cares. He made weekly confession. He was moderate in food and drink, liberal in almsgiving, regular in his fasts. His mood varied between liveliness and gravity (morosus). He was diligent in the administration of justice, specially ready to help the cause of the widow, prompt to put down abuses, “often reading books he surrenders himself to an honourable occupation; and,” goes on the writer with an abrupt transition, “as a bold archer he avoids inaction; therefore he is not fleshy, nor burdened with corpulence, but a handsome man, never weary, whether he be on horseback or on foot.” Elsewhere, too, he speaks of the King’s fondness for hunting, fowling, and fishing, and of his activity as a walker and rider, characteristics which follow his praises as “one who was not given to vice or gluttony.” There can be no doubt that, at least from the time when his father’s death brought home to him the responsibilities of power, he emphatically deserved the praise of purity of life.
The devotional aspect of his character has been spoken of more than once in these pages. It would be unjust to doubt the sincerity of his piety because many of his acts seem inconsistent with our own conceptions of the character which piety should produce. It was not the less genuine in him because it did not make him tender-hearted or philanthropic, because he pursued his great scheme of conquest without scruple, without remorse, without a thought for the blood which he was shedding, or for the desolation which he was causing. His religion made him what few kings have been, temperate and chaste. It did not make him merciful; it would not be too much to say that in Henry’s age it made no man merciful. We must compare it, not with the religion of a Havelock or a Gordon, but with the grovelling superstition of a Lewis the Eleventh. It would certainly be more just to charge him with fanaticism than with hypocrisy. He seems to have looked upon his wars for the acquisition of the French crown as a devout prince two centuries before might have looked upon a crusade. It was his mission to recover what he seems, difficult as it is to believe it, to have sincerely regarded as his rightful inheritance. By one of those processes of self-deception that are so difficult to imagine of others, so easy to perform for ourselves, he had persuaded himself of the soundness of a title which seems to us to need no refutation; and all his candid, his almost audacious confidence, his unhesitating rejection of compromises, as well as the earnestness of his prayers and thanksgivings for victory, indicate a profound conviction that he was doing a work to which he had been divinely sent. If we are to compare him with the famous conquerors of the world, we should find his parallel in Alexander, convinced that it was his mission to take the vengeance of force for centuries of Persian wrong, rather than in Napoleon, whose faith did not go beyond a conviction of the power of his big battalions.
Of Henry’s qualities as a military leader it is impossible to speak too highly. The one possible exception where he may be thought to have failed, not indeed in skill, but in prudence, was the march from Harfleur to Calais. Yet it was a piece of calculated audacity abundantly justified by the result. To have gone back from Harfleur with nothing to show for a wasted army but a single seaport, would have discredited him both at home and abroad. He had to make an impressive display of his superiority if he was to be accepted as the future conqueror of France. His career after this was one of unbroken success—success earned by courage, foresight, tactical skill, fertility of resource, economy of strength, in short, by all the qualities of a great captain. There is no more conclusive proof of his greatness than the instantaneous change which his presence wrought in the prospects of a campaign: Ipso adventu profligata bella.
Of his qualities as a ruler it is difficult to speak. It would be unjust to compare him with Richard Coeur de Lion, and speak of him as a great soldier and nothing more. On the other hand, we do not find in him—we have indeed no opportunity of finding in him—the great legislative power of Edward the First. But he was not unmindful of his duties as a king, and in the midst of his campaigns he found time for the cares of civil government. England never had a more popular sovereign, though he made demands upon it in men and money which, considering the shortness of his reign, must have exceeded all precedent; and even in the country which he ruled as a stranger he won a general admiration and respect.
It should not affect our estimate of his greatness that we now see his schemes of conquest to have been chimerical, his purpose of uniting the crowns of England and France an impossible dream. He must have himself found it to be so had he lived. When thirty years had passed, after an enormous expenditure of blood and treasure, nothing was left of his French conquests. But he had come nearer than any who had gone before him to the accomplishment of the great hope of his predecessors. He died in Paris, the “Heir of France.”
THE END
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