Henry of Monmouth Volume I Part 9

Hotspur was much moved by this act of grace, and sent his uncle, the Earl of Worcester, to negociate. This man has been called the origin of all the mischief; and he is said so to have addressed the King, and so to have misinterpreted his mild and considerate conversation, "who condescended, in his desire of reconciliation, even below the royal dignity," that both parties were incensed the more, and resolved instantly to try their strength. The onset was made by the archers of Hotspur, whose tremendous volleys caused dreadful carnage among the King's troops. "They fell," says Walsingham, "as the leaves fall on the ground after a frosty night at the approach of winter. There (p. 174) was no room for the arrows to reach the ground, every one struck a mortal man." The King's bowmen also did their duty. A rumour, spreading through the host, that the King had fallen, shook the steadiness and confidence of his partisans, and many took to flight; the royal presence, however, in every part of the engagement soon rallied his men. Hotspur and Douglas seemed anxious to fight neither with small nor great, but with the King only;[166] though they mowed down his ranks, making alleys, as in a field of corn, in their eagerness to reach him. He was, we are told, unhorsed again and again; but returned to the charge with increased impetuosity. His standard-bearer was killed at his side, and the standard thrown down. At length the Earl of Dunbar forced him away from the post which he had taken. Henry of Monmouth, though he was then no novice in martial deeds, yet had never before been engaged on any pitched-battle field; and here he did his duty valiantly. He was wounded in the face by an arrow; but, so far from allowing himself to be removed on that account to a place of safety, he urged his friends to lead him into the very hottest of the conflict.

Elmham records his address: whether they are the very words he (p. 175) uttered, or such only as he was likely to have used, they certainly suit his character: "My lords, far be from me such disgrace, as that, like a poltroon, I should stain my noviciate in arms by flight. If the Prince flies, who will wait to end the battle? Believe it, to be carried back before victory would be to me a perpetual death! Lead me, I implore you, to the very face of the foe. I may not say to my friends, 'Go ye on first to the fight.' Be it mine to say, 'Follow me, my friends.'" The next time we hear of Henry of Monmouth is as an agent of mercy. The personal conflict between him and Hotspur, into the description of which Shakspeare has infused so full a share of his powers of song, has no more substantial origin than the poet's own imagination. Percy fell by an unknown hand, and his death decided the contest. The cry, "Henry Percy is dead!" which the royalists raised, was the signal for utter confusion and flight.[167] The number of the slain on either side is differently reported. When the two armies met, the King's was superior in numbers, but Hotspur's far more abounded in gentle blood. The greater part of the gentlemen of Cheshire fell on that day. On the King's part,[168] except the Earl of Stafford and (p. 176) Sir Walter Blount, few names of note are reckoned among the slain.

[Footnote 165: That the battle was fought in Hateley Field is proved by a doc.u.ment containing a grant by patent (10 Hen. IV.) of two acres of land for ever to Richard Huse (Hussey), Esquire, for two chaplains to chant ma.s.s for the prosperity of the King during his life, and for his soul afterwards, and for all his progenitors, and for the souls of them who died in that battle and were there interred, and for the souls of all Christians, in a new chapel to be built on the ground. See Sir Harris Nicolas' preface to vol. i. p. 53.]

[Footnote 166: The story that Henry adopted the unchivalrous expedient of fighting in disguise, arraying several persons, especially the Earl of Stafford and Sir Walter Blount, in royal armour, seems altogether fabulous.]

[Footnote 167: The Scots fled, the Welshmen ran, the traitors were overcome; then neither woods letted, nor hills stopped, the fearful hearts of them that were vanquished.--Hall.]

[Footnote 168: Hume says, most unadvisedly, "the persons of greatest distinction who fell on that day were on the King's side."]

The Earl of Worcester, Lord Douglas, and Sir Richard Vernon, fell into the hands of the King; they were kept prisoners till the next Monday, when Worcester and Vernon were beheaded. The Earl's head was sent up to London on the 25th (the following Wednesday), by the bearer of the royal mandate, commanding it to be placed upon London bridge.

Thus ended the "sad and sorry field of Shrewsbury."[169] The battle appeared to be the archetype of that cruel conflict which in the (p. 177) middle of the century almost annihilated the ancient n.o.bility of England.

Fabyan says, "it was more to be noted vengeable, for there the father was slain of the son, and the son of the father."

[Footnote 169: The Pell Rolls, so called from the pells, or skins, on rolls of which accounts of the royal receipts and expenditure used to be kept, are preserved both in the Chapter House of Westminster, and also in duplicate at the Exchequer Office in Whitehall. The Author had every facility afforded him of examining them at his leisure; and doubtless these doc.u.ments contain much valuable information, throwing light as well on the national affairs of the times to which they belong, as on the more private history of monarchs and people. This is evident to every one on inspecting the records of any one year. But at the same time they read a lesson, clear and sound, on the indispensable necessity of constant care, and circ.u.mspection, and sifting scrutiny, before reliance be placed on them as evidence conclusive, and beyond appeal. The Author of these Memoirs entered upon an examination of the original doc.u.ments, fully aware that the date of payment with reference to any fact could never be adduced in evidence that the event took place at the time the entry was made, but only that it had taken place before that time. Thus, a debt due to the Prince, or one in command under him, at the siege of a castle in Wales, or to tradesmen and merchants for supplying the forces with provisions, or to messengers sent with all speed bearing despatches to the castle during the siege, might remain unpaid for several years. He was, however, at the same time under an impression that the sum was recorded on the day of payment; at all events, that payments with reference to any insulated fact could not have been recorded as having been made before that fact had transpired. In both these points, however, he was mistaken. Payments were registered not only long after the day on which they were made, but absolutely _before the event had taken place_ to which they refer, and which could not have been antic.i.p.ated by any human foresight. Thus, not only is payment recorded as having been made to Hotspur nearly five months after his death, and to the Earl of Worcester, twelve weeks after he was beheaded, for expenses incurred by him in bringing the King's consort from Brittany to England in the January preceding, but absolutely the payment of messengers sent throughout the kingdom to announce Henry Percy's death and the defeat of the rebels near Shrewsbury, and to order all ferries and pa.s.sages to be watched to prevent the escape of the rebels, is recorded as having been made on the 17th of July 1403, FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE BATTLE TOOK PLACE, and the very day on which the King wrote to his council, informing them of the rebellion, before he could himself possibly have antic.i.p.ated the place or time of any engagement, much less the successful issue of such a struggle with the rebels. The fact is, these accounts were not kept with the regularity of a modern banking-house; and the entries of what may have been omitted were made at the audits, from rough minutes and account-books. Thus mistakes as to the date of actual payment probably were not rare. The Pell Rolls are useful a.s.sistants; they must not be followed implicitly as guides.]

CHAPTER IX. (p. 178)

THE PRINCE COMMISSIONED TO RECEIVE THE REBELS INTO ALLEGIANCE. -- THE KING SUMMONS NORTHUMBERLAND. -- HOTSPUR'S CORPSE DISINTERRED. -- THE REASON. -- GLYNDOWR'S FRENCH AUXILIARIES. -- HE STYLES HIMSELF "PRINCE OF WALES." -- DEVASTATION OF THE BORDER COUNTIES. -- HENRY'S LETTERS TO THE KING, AND TO THE COUNCIL. -- TESTIMONY OF HIM BY THE COUNTY OF HEREFORD. -- HIS FAMOUS LETTER FROM HEREFORD. -- BATTLE OF GROSSMONT.

1403-1404.

No sooner had the King gained the field of Shrewsbury than he took the most prompt measures to extinguish what remained of the rebellion of the Percies. On the very next day he issued a commission to the Earl of Westmoreland, William Gascoigne, and others, for levying forces to act against the Earl of Northumberland. That n.o.bleman, as we have seen, remained in the north, probably in consequence of a sudden attack of illness, when Hotspur made his ill-fated descent into the south: but the King had good reason to believe that he was still in arms against the crown; and although he despatched that commission of array to the Earl of Westmoreland within only a few hours of the battle, yet (p. 179) he resolved to march forthwith in person,[170] and crush the rebellion by one decisive blow. On Monday the 23rd, the Earl of Worcester was beheaded; and on the same day all his silver vessels, forfeited to the King, were given to the Prince.[171] On the Tuesday the King must have started for the north; for we find two ordinances dated at Stafford, a distance of thirty miles from Shrewsbury, on Wednesday the 25th.

Whilst one of these royal mandates savours of severity, the other not only is the message of mercy and forgiveness, but recommends itself to us from the consideration of the person to whom the exercise of the royal clemency was intrusted with unlimited discretion. Henry of Monmouth, perhaps, left Shrewsbury after the battle, and proceeded with his father on his journey northward; but we conclude Stafford to have been, at all events, the furthest point from the Princ.i.p.ality to which he accompanied him. Whether the measure of mercy originated with the King or the Prince, certainly both the King believed that his son would gladly execute the commission, and the Prince felt happy in (p. 180) being made the royal representative in the exercise of a monarch's best and holiest prerogative. An ordinance was made by the King at Stafford, investing the Prince of Wales with full powers to pardon the rebels who were in the company of Henry Percy. The Prince probably remained in or near Shrewsbury for the discharge of the duties a.s.signed to him by this commission. The King, having despatched messengers throughout the whole realm announcing Henry Percy's death and the defeat of the rebels, and commanding all ports to be watched that none of the vanquished might escape, proceeded northward. On the 4th of August we find him at Pontefract, from which place he issued an order to the Sheriff[172] of York, which certainly indicates anything rather than a thirst of vengeance on his enemies. It appears that many persons, reckless of justice and confident of impunity, had laid violent hands on the goods of the rebels; and different families had thus been subjected to most grievous spoliation. The King's ordinance conveys a peremptory order to the Sheriff of Yorkshire to interpose his authority, and prevent such acts of violence and wrong, even upon the King's enemies. On the 6th, we find him still at Pontefract, (p. 181) and again on the 14th. Official doc.u.ments, without supplying any matter which needs detain us here, account for him through the intervening days.

Walsingham also relates that the King proceeded to York, and summoned the whole county of Northumberland to appear before him. The Earl, who had started with a strong body a few days after the battle, either in ignorance of his son's failure, or to meet the King for the purpose of treating with him for peace, had been resisted by the Earl of Westmoreland, and compelled to retire to Warkworth. On receiving the King's summons, leaving the commonalty behind, he approached the royal presence with a small retinue, and, in the humble guise of a suppliant, besought forgiveness.[173] The King granted him full pardon, on the 11th of August;[174] and then began his return towards Wales. We find him, from the 14th to the 16th,[175] at Pontefract; on the 17th, at Doncaster. On the 18th, at Worksop; on the 26th, at (p. 182) Woodstock; and on the 8th of September, at Worcester.[176]

[Footnote 170: Sir Harris Nicolas, in his very valuable preface to the first volume of the Acts of the Privy Council, has fallen into the most extraordinary mistake of stating that the King, after the battle of Shrewsbury, "remained in or near Wales until November." He was certainly absent through six full weeks on his northern expedition.

The same Editor more than once affirms that the battle of Shrewsbury was fought on the 23rd of July.]

[Footnote 171: MS. Donat. 4597.]

[Footnote 172: Mr. Morritt of Rokeby, in a letter to Sir Walter Scott, (Life of Scott, vol. ii. p.

387,) says, "In the time of Henry IV. the High Sheriff of Yorkshire who overthrew Northumberland, and drove him to Scotland after the battle of Shrewsbury, was a Rokeby. Tradition says that this Sheriff was before an adherent of the Percies, and was the identical knight who dissuaded Hotspur from the enterprise, on whose letter the angry warrior comments so freely in Shakspeare."]

[Footnote 173: His friends and retainers spread strange reports throughout the north, of the King's death; and, a.s.sembling in great force, held the castles of Berwick, Alnwick, and Warkworth against the royal authority. The Earl of Westmoreland, Warden of the West March, therefore requested to be supplied with cannon and other means of a.s.sault to reduce these fortresses. The proceedings are given in detail among the Acts of the Privy Council, but do not call for a minute examination here.]

[Footnote 174: Walsingham says expressly, it was on the morrow of St. Lawrence, August 11th.]

[Footnote 175: On the 15th, he issues a proclamation for an array, to meet him at Worcester, on the 3rd of September at the latest, to proceed against Owyn.]

[Footnote 176: It was on his return towards Wales that the military recommended Henry (then much in need of money) to take from the bishops their horses and gold, and send the prelates home on foot. The Archbishop resisted the outrage in a manly speech; and the King prayed a benevolence, which the clergy granted.]

After these acts of grace and pardon to Lord Douglas, Northumberland, and all others who were joined to Sir Henry Percy, we should not expect to find a charge substantiated of wanton and brutal cruelty and vengeance on the part of the King against the corpse of that gallant knight.

Such a charge, however, is brought in the most severe terms which language can supply in the manifesto said to have been made by the Archbishop of York. The fact of Hotspur's exhumation may be granted, and yet the King's memory may remain free from such a charge.[177]

That the body was buried, and afterwards disinterred and exposed to public view, seems not to admit of a doubt. As it appears from the Chronicle of London, "Persons reported that Percy was yet alive. He was therefore taken up out of the grave, and bound upright between two mill-stones, that all men might see that he was dead." "The cause of Hotspur's exhumation is therefore satisfactorily explained; and, (p. 183) since it must have been very desirable to remove all doubt as to the fact of his death, the charge of needless barbarity which has been brought against the King for disinterring him is without foundation."[178]

[Footnote 177: The King, speaking of the death of Hotspur, merely says, "He hath gone the way of all flesh."--Rot. Pat. 4 Hen. IV. p. 2.]

[Footnote 178: Sir Harris Nicolas.]

The King now adopted prompt and vigorous measures for the suppression of the rebellion in Wales; and with that view issued from Worcester an ordinance to several persons by name, to keep their castles in good repair, well provided also with men and arms. Among others, the Bishop of St. David's is strictly charged as to his castle of Laghadyn; Nevill de Furnivale, for Goodrich; Edward Charleton of Powis, for Caerleon and Usk; John Chandos, for Snowdon. On the 10th of September, the King, still at Worcester, created his son, John of Lancaster, Constable of England. On the 14th he was at Hereford,[179] when he gave a warrant to William Beauchamp, (to whom was intrusted the care of Abergavenny and Ewias Harold,) to receive into their allegiance the Welsh rebels of those lordships. A similar warrant for the rebels of Brecknock, Builth, Haye, with others, is given, on the 15th, to Sir John Oldcastle, John ap Herry, and John Fairford, clerk, dated Devennock. The King was then on his route towards Caermarthen,[180]

where he stayed only a short time; and left the Earl of Somerset, (p. 184) Sir Thomas Beaufort, the Bishop of Bath, and Lord Grey to keep the castle and town for one month. He shortly afterwards commissioned Prince Henry to negociate with those persons for their pardon who had been excepted from the act of oblivion after the battle of Shrewsbury.[181]

[Footnote 179: On the 12th, he had issued a proclamation from Hereford for his lieges to meet him there forthwith.]

[Footnote 180: Caermarthen suffered very seriously in this war: the Pell Rolls, June 26, 1406, record the payment of a sum to the Burgesses and Goodmen of Caermarthen, in mitigation of the losses they had sustained. On this occasion the King arrived there on the 25th and stayed till the 29th.]

[Footnote 181: On the 2nd of October, the King issued a proclamation against Owyn. He seems to have returned through Gloucester to London, immediately after the 17th October; on which day a warrant to Robert Waterton, to arrest Elizabeth wife of the late Henry Percy, is dated Gloucester.

On the 8th of October, those four persons whom Henry had left in charge of Caermarthen, implore the council by letter to send the Duke of York, or some other general, to take charge of the King's interests in that district, and to furnish troops to succeed those whom the King had left in trust there, since they had expressed their determined resolution not to remain beyond their month.]

The Welsh, though driven probably from Caermarthenshire[182] in the early part of this autumn, seem to have carried on their hostilities in other districts with much vigour into the very middle of winter.[183]

On the 8th of November, the King, being then at Cirencester, (p. 185) issued strict orders for the payment of 100_l._ to Lord Berkeley, for the succour of the garrison of Llanpadarn Castle, then straitly besieged by the rebels, and in great danger of falling into their hands. Lord Berkeley was appointed Admiral of the Fleet to the westward of the Thames, on the 5th of November 1403.

[Footnote 182: On the 1st of December the King acknowledges that the people of Kedwelly had repaired their walls which Owyn had injured; and, on the 19th, the castle of Llanstaffan is given to the custody of David Howell, who undertook to defend it with ten men-at-arms and twenty archers at his own expense, the late captain having been taken by Owyn.]

[Footnote 183: On the 26th of October, the King commissions the Earl of Devon, with the Courtenays and others, to press as many men as might be necessary wherever they were to be found, and to proceed forthwith by sea to rescue the castle of Caerdiff, then in great peril.]

On the 22d of November the King issued a proclamation for all rebels to apply for an amnesty before the Feast of the Epiphany next ensuing, or in default thereof to expect nothing but the strict course of the law.

It is matter of doubt whether Prince Henry remained in Wales and the borders through the winter, or returned to his charge in the spring.

On the opening of the campaign, however, in 1404, we find the Welsh chieftain aided by a power which must have made his rebellion far more formidable than it had hitherto been. A truce between England and France had been concluded just before the battle of Shrewsbury, but it was of very short duration. Early in the spring, the French appeared off the sh.o.r.es of Wales in armed vessels, and in conjunction with Glyndowr's forces, laid siege to several castles along the coast. As early as April 23rd, a sum of 300_l._ is a.s.signed by the council for equipping with men and arms, provisions and stores, five vessels (p. 186) in the port of Bristol, to relieve the castles of Aberystwith and Cardigan, and to compel the French to raise the siege of Caernarvon and Harlech.[184] Not only were the castles on the coast brought into increased jeopardy by this accession of a continental force to Owyn's army of native rebels, but the inhabitants of the interior, already miserably plundered, and in numberless cases utterly ruined, by the ravages of the Welsh, now began to give themselves up to despair. A letter from the King's loyal subjects of Shropshire (which we must refer to this spring), praying for immediate succour against the confederate forces of Wales and France, furnishes a most deplorable view of the state of those districts. One-third part of that county, they say, had been already destroyed, whilst the inhabitants were compelled to leave their homes, in order to obtain their living in other more favoured parts of the realm. The pet.i.tion prays for the protection of men-at-arms and archers, till the Prince[185] himself should come.

[Footnote 184: Measures had been taken, in expectation, as it should appear, of these sieges.

January 31, 1404, money is paid to the Prince to purchase sixty-six pipes of honey (to make mead), twelve casks of wine, four casks of sour wine, fifty casks of wheat-flour, and eighty quarters of salt, for victualling Caernarvon, Harlech, Llanpadarn, and Cardigan.]

[Footnote 185: From this expression, Sir Harris Nicolas is induced to refer the letter (which is dated April 21st) to the year 1403, the Prince having been appointed Lieutenant of Wales on the 7th of March preceding. But the mention of the _French_ auxiliaries, who appear not to have visited those parts till the year following, seems to fix the date of this doc.u.ment to the year 1404.]

Soon after the French had carried on these hostile movements, (p. 187) their King made a solemn league with Owyn Glyndowr, as an independent sovereign, acknowledging him to be Prince of Wales. Owyn dated his princedom from the year 1400, and a.s.sumed the full t.i.tle and authority of a monarch.[186] In this year he commissioned Griffin Young his chancellor, and John Hangmer, both "his beloved relatives," to treat with the King of France, in consideration of the affection and sincere love which that ill.u.s.trious monarch had shown _towards him_ and _his subjects_.[187] This commission is dated "Doleguelli, 10th May, A. D.

1404, and in the fourth year of our princ.i.p.ality." In conformity with its tenour, a league was made and sworn to between the amba.s.sadors of "_our ill.u.s.trious and most dread lord, Owyn, Prince of Wales_," and those of the King of France. That sovereign signed the commission (p. 188) on the 14th of June; and the league was sealed in the chancellor's house at Paris, on the 14th July. Its provisions are chiefly directed against "Henry of Lancaster."

[Footnote 186: Owyn does not, however, seem to have exercised the princely prerogative of coining money. Indeed, no Welsh coin of any date is known to have been ever in existence. Thomas Thomas, the Welsh antiquary, says that a coin (or Dr.

Stukeley's impression from a coin) of King Bleiddyd is now in the Cotton museum, of a date above nine hundred years before Christ; and that there are others of Monagan about the year one hundred and thirty before the Christian era. A search for them, it is presumed, would be fruitless.]

[Footnote 187: The words in italics are in the original "erga nos et _subditos_ nostros."

"Ill.u.s.tris et metuendissimi domini nostri Owini Principis Walliarum."--See Rymer.]

The reinforcements which Owyn Glyndowr received from France at the opening of the campaign in the spring of 1404, enabled him not only to lay siege to the castles in North and West Wales (as it was called), but to make desperate inroads into England, as well about Shropshire as in Herefordshire. A letter addressed to the council, June 10th, by the sheriff, the receiver, and other gentlemen of the latter county, conveys a most desponding representation of the state of those parts; especially through the district of Archenfield. The bearer of this letter was the Archdeacon of Hereford, Dean of Windsor, the same person who wrote in such "haste and dread" to the King the year before. Some parts of this letter deserve to be transcribed, they afford so lively a description of the frightful calamities of a civil war. "The Welsh rebels in great numbers have entered Irchonfeld,[188] which is a division of the county of Hereford, and there they have burnt houses, killed the inhabitants, taken prisoners, and ravaged the country, (p. 189) to the great dishonour of our King, and the insupportable damage of the county. We have often advertised the King that such mischiefs would befal us. We have also now certain information that within the next eight days the rebels are resolved to make an attack in the March of Wales, to its utter ruin if speedy succour be not sent. True it is, indeed, that we have no power to shelter us, except that of Lord Richard of York and his men, far too little to defend us. We implore you to consider this very perilous and pitiable case, and to pray our sovereign lord that he will come in his royal person, or send some person with sufficient power to rescue us from the invasion of the aforesaid rebels; otherwise we shall be utterly destroyed,--which G.o.d forbid! Whoever comes will, as we are led to believe from the report of our spies, have to engage in battle, or will have a very severe struggle, with the rebels. And, for G.o.d's sake, remember that honourable and valiant man the Lord Abergavenny,[189] who is on the very point of destruction if he be not rescued. Written in haste at Hereford, June 10th."

[Footnote 188: Irchonfeld, now called Archenfield, contains some of the most fertile land in Herefordshire. The inhabitants of Whitchurch, in that district, used to say, before modern luxury had taught us to reckon foreign productions among the necessaries of life, that, excepting salt, their parish supplied whatever was needed for their subsistence in comfort.]

[Footnote 189: This was William Beauchamp, to whom the King had given, in the first year of his reign, the castles[189-a] of Pembroke, Tenby, Kilgarran, with others, by patent, 29th November, 1 Henry IV; and who was very closely besieged in the spring of 1401, and the summer of 1404, in the castle of Abergavenny.]

[Footnote 189-a: MS. Donat. 4596.]