Henry V: The Background, Strategies, Tactics and Battlefield Experiences of the Greatest Commanders of History Paperback Read Free Page A

on into 1401, with
    Conwy Castle falling to a coup de main in that year,
    though it was rapidly back in English hands. Henry IV
    led an expedition to southern Wales in October in
    support of his son. This short campaign, lasting only
    two weeks, took in Llandovery and the monastery at
    Strata Florida, but again failed to achieve anything
    substantial, and Glendower felt bold enough to launch
    an assault on Caernarvon Castle shortly afterwards and
    attack Welshpool once more. In April 1402 Glendower
    managed to capture Lord Grey of Ruthin, while on 22 June he
    defeated an army led by Sir Edmund Mortimer at the battle
    of Bryn Glas, capturing him and killing some 1,100 of his men.
    This success, followed up by Glendower's assaults on the towns of
    Abergavenny, Caerleon, Usk, Newport and Cardiff in southern Wales led
    This shield is part of the
    to Henry IV undertaking another punitive expedition in September 1402,
    military equipment
    dividing his large force - chroniclers claim some 100,000 men, though this
    associated with the tomb
    is an extreme exaggeration - into three columns, with the northernmost one
    of Henry V. It is made of
    commanded by Prince Henry. However, this two-week campaign was the
    limewood and has an arm
    most unsuccessful one so far, achieving almost nothing in the face of Welsh
    pad of crimson velvet.
    withdrawals and terrible weather conditions.
    Scraps of the original blue
    In March 1403 Henry formally became the king's lieutenant of the marches
    silk brocade are still visible.
    in Wales based in Shrewsbury, taking absolute command of operations against
    (Copyright Dean and
    Glendower for the first time, but it was not to be in Wales that he was to face
    Chapter of Westminster)
    his first major battle.
    The battle of Shrewsbury
    The powerful Percy family of northern England - holders of many of the royal
    positions along the border - had become increasingly estranged from the new
    Lancastrian regime ever since their support had helped Henry IV win the
    throne in 1399. Now they decide to take matters into their own hands and
    allied themselves with Glendower, whose prisoner (and Henry Hotspur's
    brother-in-law) Sir Edmund Mortimer had married his daughter and gone over
    to his side. They sought to overthrow the Lancastrian rule and replace Henry
    IV with the young Earl of March, Mortimer and Hotspur's nephew, who in
    many ways had a superior claim to the throne of England than Henry IV
    (see the family tree on p.5).
    The rebels' plan was that Hotspur, along with his uncle the Earl of Worcester,
    would march from Chester to Shrewsbury both to meet up with Glendower's
    forces moving northwards and to capture Prince Henry who was based there.
    At the same time his father, the Earl of Northumberland, would gather another
    force in the north.
    10

    Henry IV, who was already travelling northwards, had certainly found out
    i
    about the conspiracy by 12 July and, assembling what men he could,
    he marched for Shrewsbury on 17 July, arriving there before Hotspur and
    linking up with his 16-year-old son.
    Henry Hotspur arrived with his force on the 20th and, as Glendower and
    Northumberland were both delayed, found himself caught between the
    fortified town of Shrewsbury and the bulk of the royal forces. He withdrew
    3 miles (5km) to the north-west to the village of Berwick and prepared to
    give battle.
    The two armies appear to have been roughly of an equal size, though the
    exact numbers involved are unknown. Anything from as low as 5,000 men to
    the figure of 14,000 given in the Annales Henrici Quarti seems plausible - though
    contemporary chroniclers again give widely varying totals of anything up to
    80,000. The forces on both sides consisted of a mixture of men-at-arms and
    archers, with a detachment of Cheshire archers on the Percy side proving to be
    particularly influential in the course of the battle.
    Hotspur had drawn his men up in a line of battle on a low hill in Berwick
    Field at the top of a field