pay-packets, after which he was refunded by the Exchequer which from then on supplied the cash for future pay. The Duke of Clarence brought 240 men-at-arms and 720 archers, the Duke of York and the Earl of Dorset, 100 men-at-arms and 300 archers each, the Earl of Salisbury forty men-at-arms and eighty archers. Lesser men brought smaller retinues, John Fastolf bringing ten men-at-arms and thirty archers, while two of the royal surgeons had only six archers between them. A duke was obliged to bring fifty horses, a knight six, and a man-at-arms four. Every horse was to have a groom, though generally grooms came from among the archers. A duke was paid 13 s 4 d a day, an earl 6 s 8 d , a baron 4 s , a knight 2s , a man-at-arms 1 s and an archer 6d . Save for the very great – who often ended up out of pocket – this was good money. (We know from the income tax returns of 1436 that the average income of a great nobleman was £865, of a well-to-do knight £208, of a minor gentleman or merchant from £15 to £19, and a ploughman might earn perhaps £4 a year.) There was also the prospect of ransoms and loot – men of all classes must have remembered how their grandfathers had made fortunes during Edward III’s campaigns in France. The king was mercilessly strict in his insistence on a full complement at the muster; when the Duke of Gloucester was found to be two men-at-arms short, he was punished by receiving no pay for a year and having in consequence to find his troops’ pay from his own resources. For in Wales Henry had begun to develop an efficient system of ‘muster and review’, and was determined that he was not going to be charged for non-existent soldiers, known as ‘dead souls’.
The king was fortunate in possessing a ready-made reservoir of corps commanders in his nobility. G. L. Harriss has calculated that ‘of the seventeen members of the upper nobility in 1413, eleven were within the age-bracket eighteen to thirty-two, the age when the fighting man was at his peak. Henry himself was twenty-six – exactly in the middle’. 6 Many had already served with him in Wales against Glyn Dŵr, including Lord Salisbury and Lord Warwick and Sir John Holland (not yet restored to his father’s earldom of Huntingdon) and such greybeards as the Duke of York who was over forty. The latter had a good name as a soldier. So did the Duke of Clarence, who had earned it in Ireland and during his French expedition of 1412. Furthermore the king was clearly an excellent trainer of good officers.
For his rank and file, Henry had a substantial nucleus of veterans who had fought for him – or against him – in Wales. The captains, and in consequence their men too, came from all over the kingdom. McFarlane believed that all those who fought in the wars in France were ‘gentlemen by birth and their servants’ but this was not invariably the case. (Even if of gentle blood, many of those who were later promoted captains had joined as penniless adventurers.) The ‘servants’ were often tenants rather than house or estate staff, while there is evidence that a fair number of tradesmen – butchers, fishmongers, barbers, dyers – left their shops and went and fought in France.
One may ask what was their motive. The answer can only be loot. McFarlane has produced countless examples of Englishmen from all classes who did well out of ‘spoils won in France’. Admittedly M. M. Postan, after equally extensive research, was able to cite almost as many instances of Englishmen who were impoverished as a result of campaigning in France. This was usually through arrears to pay or from being captured and having to pay a heavy ransom. 7 Yet one may guess with some certainty that, however it turned out in the end, most of the troops who took part hoped – indeed expected – to win rather than lose and that French plunder was the prospect which drew them like a magnet to serve in the war across the Channel.
The vast majority of men-at-arms, the
The king was fortunate in possessing a ready-made reservoir of corps commanders in his nobility. G. L. Harriss has calculated that ‘of the seventeen members of the upper nobility in 1413, eleven were within the age-bracket eighteen to thirty-two, the age when the fighting man was at his peak. Henry himself was twenty-six – exactly in the middle’. 6 Many had already served with him in Wales against Glyn Dŵr, including Lord Salisbury and Lord Warwick and Sir John Holland (not yet restored to his father’s earldom of Huntingdon) and such greybeards as the Duke of York who was over forty. The latter had a good name as a soldier. So did the Duke of Clarence, who had earned it in Ireland and during his French expedition of 1412. Furthermore the king was clearly an excellent trainer of good officers.
For his rank and file, Henry had a substantial nucleus of veterans who had fought for him – or against him – in Wales. The captains, and in consequence their men too, came from all over the kingdom. McFarlane believed that all those who fought in the wars in France were ‘gentlemen by birth and their servants’ but this was not invariably the case. (Even if of gentle blood, many of those who were later promoted captains had joined as penniless adventurers.) The ‘servants’ were often tenants rather than house or estate staff, while there is evidence that a fair number of tradesmen – butchers, fishmongers, barbers, dyers – left their shops and went and fought in France.
One may ask what was their motive. The answer can only be loot. McFarlane has produced countless examples of Englishmen from all classes who did well out of ‘spoils won in France’. Admittedly M. M. Postan, after equally extensive research, was able to cite almost as many instances of Englishmen who were impoverished as a result of campaigning in France. This was usually through arrears to pay or from being captured and having to pay a heavy ransom. 7 Yet one may guess with some certainty that, however it turned out in the end, most of the troops who took part hoped – indeed expected – to win rather than lose and that French plunder was the prospect which drew them like a magnet to serve in the war across the Channel.
The vast majority of men-at-arms, the
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