[MR] Wikipedia: Death of Henry V

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends,

On this date in 1422 King Henry V of England died of dysentery. Yeah, him,
Agincourt and Shakespeare's "band of brothers" speech. He was just 35 years
old, and had ruled for just nine years.

One of the original causes of the Hundred Years War between England and
France was over the succession to the French throne. When Louis X ("the
Quarrelsome") died in 1316, his only surviving descendant was a daughter.
His brother Philip, Count of Poitiers, took the throne as Philip V ("the
Tall"), established the principle that no woman could inherit the French
throne. When Philip himself died in 1322 without a male heir, the crown
passed to his younger brother Charles IV ("the Fair"), who also died male
issue in 1328, ending the direct Capet line of kings. Edward III of England
was the closest relative by blood, but the claim came through his mother
Isabella ("the She-wolf of France"), a daughter of Philip IV, making Edward
a cousin of Charles. The French nobles rejected Edward's claim, citing
descent through a female line, and instead chose Philip VI ("the
Fortunate"), House of Valois, as King. Didn't these folks have great
by-names?

This didn't sit at all well with Edward, but he initially accepted the
situation. Various tensions built between France and England. After
declaring himself the rightful King of France, Edward raised land and naval
forces, invading France in 1340. The war dragged on for . . . well, what
seemed like a hundred years (really almost 120 years, but it was punctuated
by barely-observed truces from time to time). One of these truces was
between 1389-1415.

Flash back a moment to 1356 and the Battle of Poitiers. French King John II
("the Good") was taken captive and hustled off to England. The 1360 Treaty
of Brétigny set his ransom at 3 million crowns. In 1364, John died
(possibly poisoned by his son-in-law Charles "the Bad", King of Navarre,
but that's another story). The French saw no reason to continue ransom
payments for a dead king, and thus stiffed the English for what was still
owed.

So back to Henry. He was pretty much a conquer monkey, and France looked
like a ripe target. Charles VI ("the Mad"), was now on the French throne.
Meanwhile, the Armagacs and the Burgundian factions had descended into
civil war over who was going to be regent. France was in chaos. So Henry
revived the dormant, and to the French invalid, claim to the throne, along
with a demand for the unpaid portion of John II's ransom. He invaded France
in 1415. Henry's success at Agincourt was followed by other conquests,
until he held most of northern France, and had succeeded in bringing the
Burgundians over to his side. The 1420 Treaty of Troyes, agreed to by the
feeble-minded Charles VI, recognized Henry as his heir and regent. To seal
the deal Henry married Catherine of Valois, Charles' daughter. Charles' own
son and Dauphin of France, another Charles (later Charles VII, "the
Victorious"), was cut out of the loop for succession.

The war for France wasn't over, and Henry had to take the field again in
1421 after his brother Thomas, Duke of Clarence, rather stupidly got
himself killed at the Battle of Baugé. During a siege at Meaux in May 1422,
Henry caught dysentery, later complicated by possible heatstroke. He died
at the Château de Vincennes on 31 August 1422.

A side note here. Henry V and Catherine's only child was Henry VI, a king
who was plagued with mental instability and poor judgement. Was this a
genetic continuation of Charles VI's madness? Food for thought.

Here is Wikipedia's bio on Henry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_V_of_England .

Yours Aye,


Lord Mungo Napier Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆