ROYAL CORRESPONDENTS

Taranaki Daily News, 2 December 1933, Page 7 (Supplement)

ROYAL CORRESPONDENTS

HENRY’S LETTERS TO HIS FATHER. The gay young prince, Harry Madcap, afterwards Henry V., wrote a number of dutiful letters to his father with his tongue in his cheek. And he wrote a great many other letters which prove him to have been a man of some learning as well as the rough soldier he is usually considered. To his father he wrote: “I have been made acquainted with the great prosperity of your high and royal estate, which is to be the greatest joy that can fall to my lot in this world.” “May it please your Highness to know that the Welsh have made a descent on Herefordshire, burning and destroying also the country, with very great force, and with a supply of provisions for 15 days. But since my arrival in these parts I have heard of no further damage from them, God be thanked!” “I will do all I possibly can to resist the rebels and save the English country, ever trusting in your high majesty to remember my poor estate, and that I have not the means of continuing here without the adoption of some other measures for my maintenance.” Before the battle of Agincourt, Madcap ' Harry, then Henry V., addressed to his army a most remarkable letter which deserves to be given in full though there is only space for a small extract.

In October, 1415, he wrote: “So it is, my valiant Englishmen 1 We must either conquer or die, for victory or death is all the present prospect. But death is the least you are to suffer, if you be not victorious. No; you are to expect lingering tortures, and the most vile, inhuman usages, from a barbarous enemy, who are so cruel that your lives cannot satiate their rage; but they have threatened to cut off th© thumbs of every one of you, archers, that you may be forever disabled to draw a bow against them. We must, therefore, fight with a resolution undaunted and invincible. And why should we fear death or be doubtful of victory, since God, who guards our lives, has given

us courage to defend, them, and will strengthen us to conquer!” Later, when writing to the King of France to plead for the hand of his daughter Katherine the Fair, Henry said: “Our heart is so opposed to the cruelties of war; and has so much horror at the effusion of Christian blood, that it depends on you only that we establish a good and perpetual peace between us and our successors.”

Henry married the beautiful Katherine, and an eye-witness, a Frenchman, wrote: “On Trinity Sunday, June 3, the King of England wedded the Lady Katherine at Troyes, in the parish church near* which he lodged. Great pomp and magnificence were displayed by him and his princes, as if he had been king of the whole world.” This man also said: “The princess was very handsome and had most engaging manners; and it was plainly to be seen that King Henry was desperately in love with her.”