This is the winning essay in the 18 and over category of the Harry Gration History Prize, 2022-3, by Rachael Whitbread.
In July 1400 the usually hushed environs of York Minster echoed to the sounds of clashing steel, pounding hooves, and cracking lances, as shouts and cheers drifted over the Minster’s towers and out across the city.
This was not, contemporaries may have noted with relief, another attempt to rid an over-mighty monarch of a troublesome priest. Instead, hundreds of people had gathered in the archbishop’s palace, situated in today’s Dean’s Park, to watch a series of duels fought between English and French soldiers. These duels were militaristic affairs: the combatants wore armour and brandished sharpened weapons as though in war, although the duels had been carefully planned with the participants agreeing on the number of strokes each would face with a variety of weapons. It was a formalised combat, with the violence of the battlefield wrapped in the trappings of civility. The edges of the designated combat area were crowded with members of the royal court, citizens of the city, and the mayor and aldermen. On a platform built specially for the event sat the most celebrated observer, as much an attraction for the cheering crowds as the combats themselves – the new king, Henry IV.
Henry, however, had reason to be uneasy as he watched his champions face those of France, the ink only just drying on the tentative truce signed between England and its continental neighbour. The Frenchmen jousting before him were representatives of their lord, the king of France’s brother and an outspoken opponent of Henry’s claim to the English throne. Henry had seized that throne from his cousin, Richard II, the previous year – and France had been vocal in its criticisms of Henry’s actions and doubts regarding the legitimacy of his rule. Although the Frenchmen’s challenge to Henry’s English champions was dressed in the veneer of courtliness, Henry knew that the duels taking place before him were a public test of his kingship, his very claim to his throne, as well as of English soldiers’ aptitude.
Meanwhile, those straining to see the duels would barely have noticed if their king looked a little uncertain of victory. They were witnessing three of Europe’s most experienced jousters – Charles de Savoisy of France, the Anglo-Gascon Janico Dartasso, and English knight John Cornwall – charge against each other on horseback before breaking into foot combat. Cornwall would soon be revealed as the king’s brother-in-law – and rumours of his love affair with the king’s sister may already have been spreading among the watching crowd. After a day of combats on horseback and on foot, the people of York would have joined those of the English court in celebration as the English duellists were declared victorious and a great feast was organised in their honour. Meanwhile, King Henry could privately sigh with relief: after only a few months on a tenuous throne, his champions had demonstrated the superiority of the English and the justness of his claim.
The court duels at York in July 1400 have attracted little attention from modern historians. This is perhaps because the evidence for the events themselves is spread between myriad diverse sources including chronicle entries, financial accounts, heraldic manuscripts, and personal letters. Nevertheless, when those pieces are joined together, they highlight Henry IV’s continued interest in chivalric spectacle and his manipulation of courtly display, at a time when Henry has been accused of abandoning those interests under the burden of political leadership. These duels also reveal a fascinating event in Yorkshire’s history, demonstrating the county’s place in court ceremony and politics, and York’s importance as the scene of one of the most politically charged events of the age.
***
Henry IV and the royal court were in York en route to Scotland, for the king’s first military expedition of his young reign. Henry himself was not a particularly bellicose monarch. However, campaigns to Scotland were, by 1400, an expected part of a new English king’s reign. They were a proving ground for the martial abilities of English royalty – and by 1400, the quality of future kingship seemed borne out by monarchs’ early experiences in the north. Edward III, a self-styled paragon of kingly vigour and virtue, had campaigned north of the border in 1327-8 and 1333, his eventual victory at Halidon Hill setting the tone for his military career. Edward III’s hammering of the Scots – itself harking back to the days of his illustrious grandfather, Edward I – stood in stark contrast to the disastrous campaign of his father Edward II that culminated at Bannockburn in 1314, and the desultory expedition of Richard II in 1385.
Given their history of military antagonism, it was no surprise that the new English monarch was viewed with deep suspicion by the Scottish king and court. After Henry’s usurpation of the throne in 1399, Robert III refused to address him as king of England, instead using his former titles of ‘duke of Lancaster [and] earl of Derby’.[1] Eager to make a name for himself north of the border, Henry declared to his first parliament in November 1399, only three weeks after his coronation, that he planned to launch a campaign against England’s needling northern neighbour.[2] Henry, however, was wary of asking the English people to fund a war so soon into his reign – if there was one thing sure to cause discontent among the English population, it was requiring them to pay higher taxes. Instead, Henry extracted the soldiers, equipment, and funds for his first military campaign from his nobles, in particular from his own royal and Lancastrian affinities.[3] In June 1400, he sent a missive to the sheriff of York demanding that every knight, esquire and yeoman who had received fees from either Henry himself, the previous two monarchs, or his father John of Gaunt, ‘make haste and draw to the king’s presence at York…furnished and arrayed for war’; refusal would lead to the loss of their money, lands, and titles.[4] Similar demands were sent speedily to the sheriffs of the other counties.
There were some last-minute attempts to avoid war – the Scots would have received news of the size of Henry’s formidable army, and Robert III was also dealing with desertions of a number of Scottish nobles to the English cause, including George Dunbar, earl of March.[5] On 2 July Adam Forrester, an envoy from the Scottish king, was granted an English safe conduct to travel to Henry and attempt to avert war.[6] At York, Henry rejected the Scottish offer for peace. Instead, he sent Robert a letter declaring that the kings of England were superior to those of Scotland and pointedly stating that he would be ready to receive Robert’s homage and fealty at Edinburgh on 23 August.[7]
As well as picking his way through negotiations with Scotland, Henry had more domestic concerns. In 1400, Henry’s grip on the throne was fragile. Chivalric games had, only a handful of months earlier, provided a cover under which Henry had faced an assassination plot during in the Epiphany Rising of January 1400, when a group of Richard II’s supporters attempted to capture and likely kill him while the court celebrated at Windsor.[8] It was bold of Henry to risk another attempt on his life under the guise of a formal combat.
However, Henry felt comfortable in York: he was very much on friendly ground. The north was a Lancastrian stronghold, with lands throughout Yorkshire belonging to his family. York had also given him assistance in 1399 when he had arrived back in England from exile: he landed at Ravenspur, now lost to the North Sea out on Holderness, and the city of York lent him 500 marks ‘in his necessity’.[9] York also loaned the king money to cover the ‘expenses of [his] household in his present journey to Scotland’ in 1400 – the sum of 1000 marks, or £666 13s 4d.[10] Henry paid them back while in York on 18 July 1400 by granting them subsidies and customs from imports into the port of Kingston-Upon-Hull.[11]
As well as selecting a city in which Henry felt very much secure, York was an ideal mustering point for his northern army. Easily accessible from the Great North Road, the primary route to Scotland, the city was also central in the network of Roman roads that still criscrossed the region. For gathering groups of soldiers together, it was therefore perfectly situated. This was particularly the case for Henry’s sizable army, comprised as it was in large part of men from the north and from the lands of the duchy of Lancaster.[12] It was also a city capable of sustaining a substantial force. While the king, military commanders, and the rest of the royal court could be accommodated in the ecclesiastical buildings, especially in the Minster precinct, the army could find lodgings across the rest of the city, and even on the ground outside the walls. Meanwhile, York’s butchers on Flesh Shambles, fishmongers on Fish Shambles, the bakers of Bakehouse Lane, merchants of Coppergate, and taverners across the city could cater for the culinary needs of any gathering host.
***
While there was plenty to entertain a gathering army in the city, after a few weeks, even the daily grind of drinking, eating, and sampling York’s more earthly delights may have started to weigh on soldiers eager to begin their campaign proper. Ceremonial combats were a feature of armies waiting to go to actual conflict, and often continued once campaigning had started. Challenges were thrown out by soldiers lined up in armies waiting for battle, from the somewhat-dubious combat between a Saxon champion and the Norman jongleur Taillefer before the battle of Hastings in 1066, to the duel preceding the battle of Halidon Hill in 1333 when a Scotsman (and his dog) challenged an English opponent to a duel while the two armies waited for the inevitable battle to begin.[13] It seems in this tradition that Henry IV arranged for the duels between English soldiers and the visitors from France while his army waited in York. Not only would such an event provide for the entertainment of his court, but it also gave Henry an opportunity to establish a name for himself as a chivalric sponsor in the vein of his grandfather, Edward III.
Henry IV had not been born to be king. Instead, he had spent the first three decades of his life living the sort of romanticised itinerancy that was seen as the height of chivalric idealism.[14] He had participated in a jousting festival at St Inglevert in spring 1390, which saw three French knights challenge all comers to a month of jousting and general jollity in the northern French countryside. Henry pitted himself against the French champions in the lists on 16 April and, according to one observer, acquitted himself better than any other Englishman present.[15] He also went on crusade to Lithuania twice in the 1390s, helping to earn him an international reputation as a chivalric hero. His ability to engage in such chivalric pursuits waned during his years as king, however, as the realities and burdens of national leadership consumed his attention, and ill-health finally prevented him from much physical participation from 1405 until his death in 1413.[16] Henry’s patronage of the duels at York in 1400 is a fascinating piece of under-studied evidence that supports Henry’s earlier chivalric leadership continuing into the early years of his reign. His harnessing of the power of chivalric spectacle to reinforce his kingship – especially important given his tenuous claim to the throne and the circumstances of his usurpation – is furthered by his desire to be seen as a sponsor of courtly spectacles and combat similar to Edward III, a man as known for his successful foreign policy as he was for hosting myriad courtly jousts, formalised combats, and lavish spectacles.
Certainly, as far as England’s neighbours across the Channel were concerned, Henry’s reputation needed bolstering. Since his seizure of Richard II and usurpation of the throne, the French crown and nobility had been increasingly hostile to Henry IV. He had spent a year in France when he was exiled by Richard II in 1398; during his time on the continent, he became particularly close to the king’s younger brother Louis, duke of Orléans. The two even signed a personal alliance on 17 June 1399 in which they swore mutual assistance against their enemies ‘as long as our present truce is established between… the king of England and the aforesaid king of France’.[17] All of this was very well – until Henry overthrew and slew that king of England, putting himself upon the throne.
The news of Henry’s usurpation was met with shock and horror in France, not only due to their presumed closeness to Henry, but also because of their own princess’s plight. Richard II had been married to the French King Charles VI’s daughter, Isabella – and foremost in Charles’s mind was her safety and security. He was particularly concerned that Henry was seeking to marry Isabella to his son, the future Henry V, in order to support his young dynasty’s tenuous claims to the throne – and Charles’s concerns were not unfounded, as Henry instructed the Bishop of Durham to treat for a marriage between the prince of Wales and the children of France on 29 November 1399.[18] On top of these personal concerns, Charles was also apprehensive that Henry’s usurpation would return France and England to war. A cessation of hostilities had been agreed by Charles VI and Richard II in 1396 at Leulinghem. When he heard news of Henry’s usurpation, Charles VI ‘knew that all alliances and treaties were broken, and that we had returned to war’.[19] The uncertainty of Isabella’s fate added a personal touch to Anglo-French hostility that continued into 1400: even a year after Henry’s usurpation, the French king still could not bring himself to address Henry as a fellow monarch, instead referring to him somewhat tartly as ‘the one who calls himself the king of England’.[20]
Contrary to Charles’s fears, however, Henry was not keen to renew war with France immediately on taking the throne; such a war would be far from ideal given the instability of the realm in the wake of his usurpation. In an echo of his policy towards Scotland, almost as soon as he gained the throne Henry set about negotiating the continuation of the peace. It was finally confirmed in June 1400, and provided Henry with the security of his southern borders needed to launch his later expedition to Scotland without fear of a renewal of hostilities with the French.[21]
As the English army was mustering at York, Henry IV gave permission for French knight Charles de Savoisy and his entourage to travel to the city to conduct the duel against English soldiers in his presence. By 1400, Savoisy was chamberlain to Louis of Orléans, the French king’s younger brother, who had publicly assumed the role of chief Anglophobe at the French court.[22] On Henry’s usurpation of the throne, Louis seems to have quickly taken a dim view of his former friend’s actions and started to sponsor formal combats to challenge and seek to undermine English authority. As well as almost certainly encouraging Charles de Savoisy in these duels, he also paid his esquire Hector de Pontbriant 300l to joust with an unnamed English squire in 1400.[23]
Despite Louis of Orléans’s clear hostility, French animosity was carefully hidden as much as possible. After all, the French princess was still under Henry IV’s control in England; one inflammatory move on the part of the French could put her in danger. Instead, Louis of Orléans sent trusted members of his own household to England, to emphasise his opposition to Henry’s actions under the guise of courtly games, while also perhaps checking on Isabella’s status and wellbeing.
Charles de Savoisy probably entered England in June and followed the royal army north, having been issued a safe conduct in April 1400, for himself and one hundred men-at-arms and hangers-on, to come to England to perform ‘certain feats of arms’.[24] The safe conduct did not dictate a date for the duel: it was valid for four months from the date of its issue, on 27 April. The French reached York after the king, certainly by 6 July, and were accompanied throughout their journey by Richard Lancaster King of Arms and John Orewell, the king’s sergeant, who was paid 5l. for keeping an eye on them during their journey through England.[25]
If the French choice of duellists underlines continental hostility to Henry’s reign, the selection of the English participants only reinforces Henry’s claim to rule. In John Cornwall and Janico Dartasso, the two men who represented the English crown, Henry had two experienced soldiers who had both seen battle. Neither was a stranger to mortal combat. More than that, however, their selection underscored Henry’s legitimacy as sole ruler. In Cornwall, Henry had selected a friend and crusading compatriot; in Dartasso, he chose a man who had served his predecessor faithfully and was a new member of Henry’s inner circle. The two Englishmen therefore underscored Henry’s recognition by the English – by both his own men and those previously loyal to Richard II – as sole legitimate monarch. This selection in fact echoes the composition of the English army encamped at York in July 1400, comprised as it was of Henry’s own Lancastrian affinity, and the royal affinity he had inherited from his predecessor.[26] As such, Cornwall and Dartasso represented the national unity of old and new regimes that Henry was at such pains to emphasise.
John Cornwall was an experienced knight and probably well-known to Henry IV: the two had jousted together against three French knights at St Inglevert in 1390 and crusaded together in Lithuania. Walsingham refers to him as ‘Greencornwall’, apparently because of the tradition that he had been born at sea, in St Michael’s Mount Bay, when his mother was en route from Brittany to England.[27] Cornwall became a member of the royal family when he married Elizabeth of Lancaster, sister of Henry IV and granddaughter of Edward III. Elizabeth had been the wife of John Holland, earl of Huntingdon and duke of Exeter, who had met a grisly end when he tried to assassinate Henry, his own brother-in-law, in January 1400. At some point between January 1400, when her previous husband was executed, and 12 December 1400, Elizabeth and John Cornwall were married. Such a match was certainly advantageous for the much lower-born Cornwall! A rumour spread that, at the time of the combat in York in July 1400, Elizabeth and John had already secretly wed without the king’s knowledge or blessing. Contemporary chroniclers allowed themselves to get caught up in this salacious gossip, noting in their narratives of the York duels that ‘it is said that [their marriage] had taken place by their mutual consent without the knowledge of the king’.[28]
The veracity of the medieval chroniclers’ gossip is hard to ascertain. Henry had John Cornwall arrested and locked in the Tower of London ‘until further order’ on 6 April 1400.[29] No explanation is offered for Cornwall’s incarceration, although it is tempting to imagine that Henry had discovered the marriage – which, without his consent as both monarch and older brother of the bride, was a serious slight to his power – and reacted by throwing his new brother-in-law into the same prison in which he had had his previous brother-in-law beheaded three months earlier. The only problem with this scandalous tale is that, throughout the summer of 1400, both Elizabeth and John were granted money from the king as individuals, not as a married couple: Elizabeth’s 1000 marks a year was confirmed to her solely on 3 August, and Cornwall was granted the manor of Carsyngton on 8 September.[30] It was only on 12 December 1400 that Henry acknowledged their marriage in writing, granting them both 1000 marks each year for as long as one of them should live.[31] What cannot be in doubt was Henry’s personal friendship with John Cornwall, despite – or because of – the man’s marriage to the king’s sister. In allowing him to act as champion at the duels in York, Henry could remind his court, the French entourage, and the people of York that he had a close circle of former campaign partners around him.
The other English duellist, Janico Dartasso, was a Gascon esquire who had previously served Richard II after joining his household in 1392. Dartasso had been one of only a handful of companions who returned with Richard from Ireland in 1399 to face Henry’s uprising.[32] For French chronicler Jean Creton, writing to galvanise the French nobility into acting against Henry IV’s usurpation, Dartasso presents a particularly heroic figure.[33] Creton takes great pleasure in describing how, even when Richard was arrested and Janico was told to remove the Ricardian livery collar that he wore, he refused and was briefly imprisoned in Chester Castle by Henry after his seizure of the throne.[34] Dartasso soon proved himself loyal to the new king, however: he was retained by Henry in November 1399 and was to become as loyal a retainer to the new king as he had been to Richard II before him.[35] By 1400 Dartasso was an experienced jouster: he represented the king’s household in jousts at court to celebrate the king’s marriage in December 1396, having previously participated in the jousts at St Inglevert in 1390 alongside both Henry and John Cornwall.[36] He later went on crusade to North Africa with Cornwall, and to Prussia with Henry; the three then went crusading against the Lithuanians – so they would have been known to each other well before Henry became king, and Cornwall and Dartasso became members of his royal household.[37]
***
The primary narrative for the combats between Dartasso, Cornwall, Savoisy and an unnamed fourth duellist is the chronicle written contemporaneously by Thomas Walsingham at St Albans. Although he wrote at the same time as the events he was describing in York, he was not an eyewitness: instead, he relied on gossip, rumour, and handed-down information. His account gives a sense of the tension and French aggression that marked the duels. Certainly, his source for these combats told him about the antagonism displayed by the Frenchmen in Yorkshire: he notes that, having arrived in York, they directed ‘arrogant and abusive’ words towards the English – we can well imagine that Henry’s claim to the throne, and the wellbeing of Queen Isabella, were raised.[38] The duels themselves took place between 6 July, when the sergeant accompanying them to York was paid for his services by the king’s own hand, and 16 July, when the French were granted a safe conduct to return to France. This period coincides with the days when Henry, his court, and the ever-swelling ranks of the English army were languishing in York as last-minute negotiations with the Scots continued.
The very name given to the event also suggests the hostile undertones with which it was fought. Walsingham and his contemporary chronicler, Thomas Otterbourne, both refer to it as a ‘duello’ or duel – a term usually reserved for judicial combat to decide the outcome of a court case, or to prove an accusation of treason.[39] Although Otterbourne’s narrative is heavily based on that of Walsingham, the terminology employed here clearly reflects that this event did not demonstrate the niceties of courtly politeness, at least in the minds of those writing about it at the time: they understood that more was at stake.
The duels took place in the archbishop’s palace in York. Rather than the current residence, located downriver in Bishopthorpe, the archbishop’s palace in the city was located to the north of the Minster in what is now Dean’s Park. Built by Archbishop Roger in the twelfth century, the palace was extensively developed for the visit of Edward III in 1327-8 and extended from the Minster to the city walls.[40] The remains of the palace complex are still visible as the arches of the war memorial and the Minster library. In 1400, the buildings were far more extensive and comprised accommodation for the archbishop and his household as well as a private chapel and various buildings for the comfort and provision of the archbishop and his guests.
Henry and his court had taken over the palace buildings for their stay in York, and so it made a natural location for the duels to take place. Not content with the layout of the buildings for the formal duels, however, the mayor and aldermen of York arranged for carpenters to erect a chamber for the king ‘for viewing certain feats of arms’ in the courtyard of the palace under the direction of Sir Thomas Pickworth, the king’s under-marshal in the city.[41] Given that the structure in the palace was seemingly built predominantly by carpenters, it seems likely that this included a wooden scaffold for the king to enjoy the spectacle, and quite possibly included wooden stands for the court and people of York to watch as well: similar wooden scaffolds and balconies were a common feature of formalised combats in Smithfield, London.[42]
York’s relationship with formalised violence had not always been so accommodating – on 19 May 1320 Edward II forbade all jousts and tournaments near York in a mandate to the archbishop’s official.[43] In July 1400 however, with the king’s blessing, the city threw itself wholeheartedly into planning for the spectacle. Unfortunately, this did not include paying for the labour involved in prepared for the duels: master carpenter Robert Paton of York and six other master carpenters from the city were still owed money for constructing the viewing chamber and lists the following January.[44]
Although the original challenge for the duels from Charles de Savoisy does not survive, the response from John Cornwall does. This document gives a sense of what the combat itself looked like, from the perspective of an actual participant. The challenges and letters of organisation were carried across the Channel by heralds, men employed to organise formalised combats at the royal courts. Richard Lancaster King of Arms carried letters back and forth between Savoisy and Cornwall to confirm arrangements, and it was also Lancaster King of Arms who accompanied the French in their journey up to York.[45]
The duels were likely held over a single day, although the feasting and general merriment at English victory likely lasted somewhat longer. The combatants agreed to exchange ten lances on horseback, followed by twenty sword blows wearing mail shirts, and twenty dagger blows on foot in the combatants’ own choice of harness.[46] The winners would be those who overcame their adversary within the allotted number of blows. This could involve the drawing of blood, the incapacitation of the other party or, in extreme examples, the death of one’s enemy. A king maintained the right to stop a duel at any point – as Richard II had done at a duel fought by Henry himself when still a duke in 1399 – although such an interruption robbed the baying crowd of its entertainment.[47]
The duellists’ concern about the number of blows each combatant would strike was echoed in the specific agreements over armour and defensive weapons that they were allowed to carry. For the jousts, Cornwall suggested that two sets of armour should be made by one party (he did not specify which) and then sent to the other for inspection.[48] They would be permitted to use targes, or small shields, although these were not permitted to be reinforced with steel or iron.[49] They would be permitted, all concerned must have noted thankfully, to wear bascinet helmets – although these were not allowed to include visors.[50] It was apparently so crucial that these representatives of the French and English crowns be easily recognisable and the winners immediately identified, that their personal safety was compromised. This is also an indication of bravado on the part of the duellists: fighting without full armour raised the stakes, making victory all the sweeter.
To the delight of Henry IV, the watching throngs of courtiers and Yorkshire folk, and Cornwall and Dartasso themselves, the English champions were victorious while their French opponents were ‘wounded and shamefully humiliated’.[51] Charles de Savoisy and his companions, still numbering one hundred people, were granted leave to depart from England through the ports of either Dover or Sandwich, ‘providing that they do not bear bows or arrows’.[52] Henry, meanwhile, was delighted at English victory: Cornwall’s marriage to his sister was either forgiven, if it had already secretly taken place, or received the king’s blessing if it was yet to be held.[53] Henry later elected him to the Order of the Garter, England’s highest chivalric honour, and the two seem to have continued a close friendship.[54] Dartasso received an additional £100 per annum as his retaining fee and custody of new lands in Ireland and Gascony.
***
Henry IV has been a somewhat overlooked, even maligned king. His early reign has been described as tenuous, with Henry keeping a slim and uncertain grip on power. He has also been accused of focusing on domestic stability and political survival at the cost of ceremonial and pageantry that had been such a feature of his grandfather Edward III’s reign, and even that of his unfortunate cousin, Richard II. However, the duels at York in 1400 show that Henry IV was very aware of how ceremonial and political occasions could occupy the same space. He was more than capable of using court festivities to score political points, reinforce or emphasise political policy, or strengthen political allegiances.
York was at the heart of Henry’s early politico-ceremonial policy. Far from being a stopping point on his journey north to Scotland, or a parochial backwater, Henry deliberately chose York as the setting for his first international formalised combat as king. He felt secure in the city in the midst of Lancastrian lands loyal to his family name; secure enough to allow duels in which representatives of his crown risked defeat at the hands of agents of his rival.
For Henry, the gamble of the York duels paid off. His champions were victorious; they received approbation and rewards from their grateful king. Henry also received something of a PR triumph: chroniclers writing at the time could write of his court’s ceremonial magnificence and Henry’s personal chivalric patronage. The same could not be said, however, of Henry’s expedition to Scotland. The campaign ended bereft of great military glory. Henry would never campaign in Scotland again; nor would he lead an English army on the continent, despite his clear intent to do so. Even his interest in, and enthusiasm for courtly spectacle seems to have waned as the kingdom was beset by further divisions and then his own health declined.
Yet, while he sat watching his soldiers triumph in a sunny field behind York Minster in summer 1400, those concerns seemed far from the king’s mind. It was in York that Henry chose to refashion his chivalric knight errantry as chivalric kingship. As such, the city of York was at the heart of Henry’s early reign – and his kingly legacy.
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