Henry V of England Timeline

Henry demanded less the bare claim to the French throne than enforcement of the Treaty of Brétigny of 1360: return of lands it granted England and unpaid remainder of John II's ransom. Successive embassies to Paris in 1414 and 1415 opened with sweeping territorial claims and returned empty-handed.

Image source: Treaty of Brétigny

Preparations for war culminated in the summer of 1415, when a fleet of some 1,500 vessels assembled in the Solent to carry an army of 10,000–12,000 men, over 80% archers, across the English Channel.

Image source: Siege of Harfleur

On 11 and 12 August 1415 Henry sailed from Southampton and landed near Harfleur on the Norman coast by 14 August, opening the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years' War (1415–1453).

Henry's victory at Agincourt in 1415 ranked alongside Crécy and Poitiers as one of the most significant English victories of the Hundred Years' War, giving England the upper hand in the conflict. It was his greatest military success.

Image source: Battle of Agincourt

In March 1416 a raiding force under Thomas Beaufort, Earl of Dorset, was attacked and narrowly escaped defeat at the Battle of Valmont after a counterattack by the garrison of Harfleur.

King Sigismund of Hungary visited England hoping to mediate peace with France. Though mediation failed, by the Treaty of Canterbury of August 1416 Sigismund accepted the justice of Henry's claims to the French throne and bound himself in a perpetual alliance with England.

Image source: Treaty of Canterbury (1416)

A Franco-Genoese fleet blockaded Harfleur while a French army besieged it by land. Henry's brother John, Duke of Bedford, relieved the town in August, defeating the Genoese and giving England mastery of the Channel for years to come.

Image source: Battle of the Seine

The 1417 expedition aimed to conquer Normandy, lost to France since King John surrendered the duchy in 1204. Henry framed the campaign as recovery of a historic English possession, appealing to Norman separatism. His army numbered just over 10,000.

Image source: Siege of Caen (1417)

Henry besieged Caen from August to September 1417, capturing it, then invested Falaise over the following winter, steadily advancing his conquest of Lower Normandy.

The conquest of Upper Normandy turned on the siege of Rouen, the ducal capital, which Henry began in the summer of 1418. The city finally surrendered on 19 January 1419. An eyewitness account attributed to 'John Page' described Henry above all as a conqueror.

Image source: Siege of Rouen (1418–1419)

In June 1419 Henry negotiated with John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, and Queen Isabella at Meulan, coming close to terms more generous than Brétigny: Normandy in full sovereignty plus Aquitaine, sealed by marriage to Catherine of Valois, whom he first met there.

Image source: Catherine of Valois

Henry pushed up the Seine, and the fall of Pontoise at the end of July 1419 gave him the region of Vexin and the road to the capital; by August his army stood before the walls of Paris.

Image source: Pontoise

On 10 September 1419, at a parley on the bridge of Montereau, John the Fearless was assassinated by partisans of the Dauphin, shattering reconciliation between the French factions that had briefly united them against Henry and pushing Burgundy toward alliance with England.

Image source: Assassination of John the Fearless

The treaty was signed on 21 May 1420 and ratified by the Estates General in Paris in July 1420, recognizing Henry as heir and regent of France. It was never accepted in Dauphinist territories south of the Loire.

Image source: Treaty of Troyes

The wedding between Henry and Catherine took place at Troyes Cathedral on 2 June 1420, fulfilling the provision of the Treaty of Troyes and sealing the Anglo-French dynastic settlement.

Henry besieged and captured Melun by November 1420, returning to England after three and a half years of fighting in France.

Image source: Melun

Henry redoubled his efforts to take Meaux; its garrison eventually surrendered on 10 May 1422, completing another major siege victory that relied heavily on his artillery.

Image source: Siege of Meaux

On 22 March 1421 Henry's brother Thomas, Duke of Clarence, suffered a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Baugé against a Franco-Scottish army, during which the duke himself was killed — a serious setback to the English war effort.

Image source: Battle of Baugé

Henry and Catherine had one child: the future Henry VI of England, born in December 1421, who was less than a year old at the time of his father's death in 1422.

Image source: Henry VI of England

Henry fell ill in June 1422, shortly after celebrating Whitsun in Paris, where his wife Catherine and infant son had joined him. In late June he appeared well enough to march toward Cosne-sur-Loire but suffered a relapse, possibly from heatstroke or dysentery, and was carried in a litter.

Henry died in the early hours of 31 August 1422, aged thirty-five, seven weeks before the ailing Charles VI, after reigning nine and a half years. He was succeeded by his only son, the infant Henry VI.

When Charles VI died in October 1422 only weeks after Henry, the nine-month-old Henry VI became king of both England and France at least in name, though the settlement rested precariously on the Burgundian alliance.

Image source: Charles VI of France

After his death Henry's body was embalmed and transported to England, where a solemn funeral procession preceded his burial in Westminster Abbey on 7 November 1422. His tomb carries the Latin inscription 'Henry V, hammer of the Gauls, lies here.'

The Treaty of Troyes settlement rested on the alliance with the Burgundians, and when they deserted the English at the Congress of Arras in 1435, the arrangement disintegrated, dooming the conquests Henry had won.

Image source: Congress of Arras