The Monks of War by Desmond Seward

Author:Desmond Seward
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: History
ISBN: 9780140195019
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Published: 1972-01-02T10:00:00+00:00

On Sunday 11 August 1415, a bright sunny day, Henry V and his armada set sail. There was only a slight breeze so the voyage across the Channel took three days. Instead of landing at Calais as expected, the English landed in Normandy at the Chef-de-Caux on the Seine estuary, just outside the rich port of Harfleur. The King had told very few even of his closest advisers of the carefully chosen destination ; Harfleur was to be the base from which he would conquer Normandy and strike down the river at Paris. It would be another Calais but with shorter supply lines more suited to campaigning in the French heartland. However, Harfleur was not easy to capture. It had dauntingly strong walls with twenty-six towers and three mighty barbicans-fortified gateways, strengthened by drawbridges and portcullises-together with a deep moat. Its garrison, commanded by the tough and able Sieur d‘Estouteville, numbered several hundred men-at-arms. When Henry called on them to surrender to the rightful Duke of Normandy, he received a sarcastic answer-‘You gave us nothing to look after, so we’ve nothing to give you back.’

Sir Simon Felbrygg, KG, Richard II’s banner-bearer, who served with John of Gaunt at the relief of Brest; and his wife Margaret, daughter of Przimislaus, Duke of Teschen, and sometime maid-of-honour to King Richard’s queen, Anne of Bohemia. Brass of 1416 at Felbrigg, Norfolk.

The English built a ditch and a stockade all round the town, their ships guarding the estuary effectively cutting Harfleur off from any hope of reinforcements or revictualling. They began to mine the walls, but grew discouraged by the French skill at detecting their tunnels and counter-mining. Henry had to rely on his artillery. This included cast-iron cannon twelve feet long and over two feet in calibre, firing stone balls which weighed nearly half a ton and were capable of demolishing the strongest masonry—though sometimes they splintered, producing a primitive but viciously effective shrapnel. The trouble was to get them into position as the Harfleur garrison had guns too, mounted on the walls. The English built earthworks and dug trenches and slowly edged their cannon forward on clumsy wheeled platforms protected by thick wooden screens. They suffered considerably, but eventually positioned their guns which began to batter away at the walls ; often the King was up all night directing them. Sections of the walls began to collapse, crashing to the ground with a terrifying roar. Yet after a month the English had still failed to take what was only a small town, and partly because of the sweltering heat of high summer, partly because many of them had to sleep on marshy ground and partly through drinking bad wine and cider and contaminated water, dysentery and probably malaria broke out. Many died, including the Earls of Arundel, March and Suffolk and the Bishop of Norwich. ‘In this siege many men died of cold in nights and fruit eating; else of stink of carrions,’ says the chronicler Capgrave. But on 17 September a barbican fell to the English.

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