CHAPTER VI THE FRENCH CROWN 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, "Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms ; And, generally, to the crown and seat of France, We are not called upon to discuss the historical foundation for this story. The chroniclers of the six CHAP. VI CAUSES OF WAR 51 teenth 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. 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. 1 Allies, however, he had whose assistance he was to 1 Edward's claim had to encounter the difficulty that, according to its argument, the French crown could not pass to a female (for in that case it would have gone to Joan, Queen of Navarre, the daughter of Louis the Tenth, Charles's eldest brother), but could pass through a female-that is, through his mother Isabella to himself.. VI HENRY'S CLAIM 53 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.1 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.2 1 The demand in money amounted in all to more than a million pounds in the currency of the time. It should be multiplied by fifteen to convert it into present value. The sum would have been considered large, had it not been dwarfed by the enormous ransom exacted from France within the last few years. 2 These were taxes on capital, the tenth being payable in town, the fifteenth in the country. But the sum actually levied was not the literal tenth or fifteenth of the property taxed. Burdensome as the imposts certainly were, these payments would have passed all endurance. From before the middle of the fourteenth century these taxes had been commuted for fixed sums. So much was levied from each township or manor. |