Henry V, King of England

b. 1387; d. 1422

Eldest son of Henry IV, born at Monmouth. He received a sound military training in the campaigns in Wales and against the Percy's. He quarrelled repeatedly with his father during the last years of Henry IV's reign, and made several policy changes immediately he succeeded to the throne in 1413. He was anxious to conciliate where possible, potential enemies, and to unify the country, so that he would be free to pursue his supreme ambition, the conquest of France. The Percy's were restored to favour, and Richard II's body given honourable burial in Westminster Abbey; but any attempts at rebellion were ruthlessly quelled, and the persecution of the Lollards rigorously continued.

Henry revived Edward III's claim to the French throne and invaded France in 1415. France was weakened by civil war, and Henry won an outstanding victory over greatly superior forces at Agincourt in 1415 and reduced northern France. In 1417 he returned to France with a larger army. His military successes and the defection of the Burgundians forced the French to sign the Treaty of Troyes (1420) by which Henry married the French king's daughter, Catherine of Valois, and was recognised as heir to the French throne. But French resistance was not yet entirely broken, and Henry died of dysentery at Vincennes, while on his way to help his ally, the Duke of Burgundy.

Henry was more than an outstanding soldier and brilliant strategist. He was also a dreamer and a fanatic. His French campaigns had for him almost the character of a religious war, and it seems probable that he saw himself as the unifier and leader of a regenerated England and France, who, their differences resolved, should lead Christendom in a victorious crusade against the infidel.

© JM Dent/Historybookshop.com

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