Henry V’s nine-year reign carried the Lancastrian monarchy from the secure succession of 1413 to a commanding position in northern France. The king combined military preparation, parliamentary finance, public devotion and close government with the senior clergy. His reign brought the failed Lollard rising, the foundation of Syon Abbey, the capture of Harfleur, the victory at Agincourt, the conquest of Normandy and the Treaty of Troyes. In western Sussex, the same years were experienced through the institutions that governed land and worship: Arundel Castle and its collegiate church, the Percy manor at Petworth, the fortified episcopal residence at Amberley, the bishops’ northern manor at Drungewick, Chichester Cathedral and the parish churches of the Western Weald. Robert Rede, Bishop of Chichester, died in 1415 and was followed by four bishops in rapid succession, while cathedral officers, parish clergy and estate households maintained continuity. Farming, woodland work, rents, taxation, coastal defence and the movement of supplies connected great houses and dispersed communities with events across the Channel.
Henry V Takes the Throne, 1413
Henry IV died at Westminster on 20 March 1413. His eldest surviving son inherited the Crown without the armed challenge that had accompanied the Lancastrian accession fourteen years earlier. The new king was about twenty-six years old and already possessed experience unusual for a prince entering his first year of rule. He had fought at Shrewsbury, directed campaigns in Wales, managed garrisons and supplies, sat in the royal council and taken part in arguments over the direction of government during his father’s declining health.
Henry was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 9 April. Contemporary reports remembered snow falling during the ceremony, an event interpreted according to the hopes or anxieties of those who witnessed it. The coronation placed the Crown, sword, sceptres and ring within a solemn Mass attended by bishops, nobles and officers of state. Oaths bound the king to protect the Church, keep the laws and render justice, while the assembled political community acknowledged him as the lawful ruler of England.
The reign began with acts intended to gather former opponents into the new settlement. Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, whose hereditary claim had once supplied an alternative to the Lancastrian line, received honour and remained close to the Crown. In December Henry brought the body of Richard II from King’s Langley to the royal tomb prepared for Richard and Queen Anne at Westminster Abbey. The reburial joined public reconciliation with royal ceremony and allowed Henry to honour the cousin displaced by his father without weakening his own title.
Royal authority travelled into Sussex through familiar channels. Chancery prepared writs, sheriffs proclaimed commands, justices continued their commissions and tax collectors accounted for money granted by Parliament. Bishops and parish priests included the king within public prayer. Henry’s government still worked mainly through Latin and French records, while English gained a more visible place in royal correspondence; surviving letters in English appear within the Chancery warrant series from 1417. The change gave the king’s own voice greater reach among readers outside the traditional clerical administration.
The Western Weald entered the reign with a layered geography of authority. Arundel Castle dominated the lower Arun valley; Petworth was a principal Percy manor; Amberley Castle and Drungewick belonged to the bishops of Chichester; Wisborough Green and Kirdford served extensive Sussex parishes, while Alfold stood across the boundary in the Diocese of Winchester. Smaller moated houses and farmsteads managed land, rents and tenants beneath these greater lordships. Adam Wrocwardyn held the vicarage of Wisborough Green, and the completed oratory at Loxwood now formed one local place of worship within this wider network.
Horsham formed the leading borough and trading centre of the northern Weald. Roads through the town linked Loxwood and the surrounding villages with Guildford and London, while routes south-west reached Petworth, Pulborough, Arundel and Chichester. Inns, craftsmen and officials made Horsham an important point for the movement of goods, news and royal instructions; its market status received formal royal confirmation in 1449.
Oldcastle and the Lollard Rising, 1413-1414
The religious tensions inherited from the previous reign soon entered the king’s immediate circle. Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, had served Henry when he was Prince of Wales and belonged to the military and political elite. He also protected Lollard preachers and held beliefs condemned by the established Church. In 1413 Archbishop Thomas Arundel and the ecclesiastical courts examined him on teachings concerning the Eucharist, confession, images, pilgrimage and clerical authority.
Oldcastle was convicted of heresy and placed in the Tower of London, from which he escaped. His supporters planned a gathering near St Giles’s Fields outside London in January 1414. Royal forces occupied the ground, arrested participants and dispersed the rising before it could threaten the capital. Some prisoners were executed for treason and heresy, while Oldcastle remained a fugitive until his capture in 1417. The episode brought religious dissent, political conspiracy and the memory of recent rebellion into the opening months of the reign.
Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, died in February 1414. Henry Chichele became the new Archbishop of Canterbury and continued the provincial regulations established through the Constitutions of 1407-1409. Licensed preaching, approved books and episcopal supervision remained the recognised means by which religious teaching reached congregations. Archbishop Chichele also became an important counsellor of the Crown, linking the archiepiscopal office with Parliament, diplomacy and the king’s developing plans in France.
Within the Diocese of Chichester, Bishop Robert Rede’s officers carried authorised teaching and clerical discipline through institutions to benefices, licences, visitations and ecclesiastical courts. The cathedral chapter and clergy serving Arundel, Wisborough Green, Kirdford, Billingshurst, Horsham and the surrounding parishes worked within the same provincial settlement. Priests explained the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the commandments and the sacraments in English while the authorised liturgy and service books remained in Latin.
Church buildings made doctrine visible as well as audible. Chichester Cathedral, Arundel’s collegiate church and the parish churches of the Weald used altars, roods, statues, painted surfaces, stained glass and seasonal ceremony to present biblical history through colour, sound and movement. Religious knowledge therefore reached far beyond the owners and readers of manuscripts: it was heard in lessons and sermons, seen in images, enacted in processions and renewed through the annual passage from Advent and Christmas to Lent, Easter, Pentecost and the summer feasts of the saints.
At Loxwood, the completed oratory concentrated this religious culture within an intimate oak-framed interior. The bell called nearby households, the holy-water stoup and narthex marked entry, benches gathered the congregation before the rood, and the stone altar fixed attention upon the Mass. Adam Wrocwardyn at Wisborough Green and the Loxwood chaplain maintained the relationship between mother church and dependent oratory, while the founding families continued the trusteeship of property, repair and the chaplain’s support.
Syon Abbey and Royal Devotion, 1414-1415
Henry’s religious patronage acquired a permanent institutional form in the foundation of Syon Abbey beside the Thames at Isleworth. The house followed the rule of St Bridget of Sweden and combined a community of enclosed nuns with priests, deacons and lay brothers who supported its worship and pastoral work. Royal planning began in 1414, and the foundation was established in 1415 under the title of St Saviour, St Mary the Virgin and St Bridget.
The king endowed Syon with property and privileges intended to sustain an elaborate cycle of prayer. Its members were to pray for Henry, his family, the realm and the dead. The abbey joined royal devotion to the government of memory: daily offices, Masses, anniversaries and intercession placed the king’s victories and mortality within the continuing worship of the Church. The foundation also reflected Henry’s interest in disciplined religious communities whose rules, officers and use of books could be carefully ordered.
Syon developed one of the most important libraries of late-medieval England. Manuscripts served the liturgy, study, preaching, spiritual reading and the administration of a large household. Surviving books and catalogues preserve evidence of gifts from religious women and lay patrons, together with texts in Latin and English. The library grew over generations, yet its origins belonged to the same reign in which English appeared with increasing confidence in royal correspondence.
Syon’s scale was exceptional, yet its arrangements belonged to a familiar religious economy. Chichester Cathedral, the collegiate church of Holy Trinity at Arundel and parish churches across western Sussex likewise depended upon endowed property, clergy, service books, vestments, lights, music and commemoration. The difference lay in the size of the endowment, the number of people sustained by it and the political reach of the founder.
The foundation of Syon also drew materials and labour from a wide economy. Stone, timber, metalwork, glass, cloth, parchment, food and fuel moved towards the new house. Similar skills served the cathedral at Chichester, the collegiate church beside Arundel Castle, episcopal residences, parish churches and high-status manor houses, carrying techniques and devotional forms between great institutions, market towns and rural estates.
Southampton, Harfleur and the Road to Agincourt, 1415
Henry’s claim in France combined dynastic inheritance, disputed sovereignty and the recovery of territories once held by the English Crown. Negotiations with the French government continued while the king assembled money, ships, weapons, horses and provisions. Parliament granted taxation, the clergy supplied subsidies and wealthy subjects made loans secured upon royal jewels and promises of repayment. Contractors gathered flour, grain, meat, fish, ale, bows, arrows and equipment at southern ports.
The army concentrated around Southampton in the summer of 1415. Before sailing, the government uncovered a conspiracy involving Richard, Earl of Cambridge, Henry Scrope and Thomas Grey. The plan sought to replace Henry with Edmund Mortimer. Mortimer disclosed the plot to the king, commissions tried the accused and the principal conspirators were executed. The proceedings secured the expedition’s rear at the moment when the king and many leading nobles were preparing to leave the kingdom.
Henry sailed for Normandy in August and laid siege to Harfleur at the mouth of the Seine. Engineers, miners, artillerymen and archers supported a sustained assault while ships maintained the supply line. The town surrendered in September. Disease had spread through the English camp, reducing the army and forcing many sick men to return home or remain in the captured port.
The king chose to march towards Calais with the force still fit for service. The route required repeated searches for a crossing of the River Somme and carried the army through country from which food had been removed or defended. Rain, hunger and sickness accompanied the advance. French forces gathered to block the road near Agincourt, placing the English between the opposing army and the northern route to Calais.
Royal administration carried the expedition’s demands into the Western Weald. Sussex ports and the Channel coast formed part of the defensive and supply network. Sheriffs, commissioners and collectors carried royal demands inland; landholders met taxes and loans; carriers moved produce towards markets and ports. Grain, cattle, timber, carts and horses remained the practical foundations beneath the spectacle of a royal campaign.
Agincourt and the News of Victory, 1415
The armies met on 25 October, the feast of Saints Crispin and Crispinian. The English occupied a narrow front between woods, with recently ploughed and rain-soaked ground before them. Archers drove sharpened stakes into the earth and formed around the men-at-arms. The French army contained a far larger concentration of nobles, mounted men and armoured infantry, whose advance became compressed by the restricted field and deepening mud.
English archery disrupted the first attacks, while close fighting developed around the royal standards. Men advancing in armour struggled through the churned ground and pressed into those already engaged. The French command suffered devastating losses among the nobility. Henry survived the battle, protected his brother Humphrey when he fell wounded and retained control of an army exhausted by siege, disease and the long march.
The killing of prisoners during a renewed alarm became one of the battle’s harshest episodes. Medieval warfare combined ransom, status and calculation with sudden fear that a defeated force might recover. By the end of the day the French army had broken, and the English resumed the road to Calais before crossing home.
Victory was announced through letters, proclamations, sermons and public worship. Bells rang, processions were held and the Te Deum gave a liturgical form to thanksgiving. Henry entered London in November through pageantry that presented Agincourt as divine favour granted to a disciplined king and people. Churches prayed for the dead as well as celebrating the survival of the king and his army.
News travelled into the Western Weald along the roads joining London, Guildford, Horsham, Arundel and Chichester. Parish clergy communicated royal thanksgiving within Sunday worship, while travellers carried names, rumours and accounts of the battle into manor halls, markets and alehouses. The victory strengthened support for later taxation because the first expedition had produced a result visible across the kingdom.
Bishop Robert Rede, the Earl of Arundel and the Sussex Estates, 1415-1416
Bishop Robert Rede died in June 1415, before Henry’s army sailed from Southampton. His death ended an episcopate extending back to 1397 and removed a bishop who had combined royal service with sustained government inside Sussex. Rede’s register records institutions, licences, disciplinary acts and estate business across the diocese, while his will reveals the household, books, plate and religious obligations that accompanied his office.
Rede made his will at Aldingbourne in August 1414 and directed that he should be buried in the choir of Chichester Cathedral, before the high altar and close to his predecessor, Bishop William Reade. He provided for priests to celebrate for his soul, alms for the poor and payments to clergy at his funeral. Vestments, silver vessels, books and altar furnishings passed to the cathedral and religious houses. His household had moved among the Bishop’s Palace at Chichester and the episcopal manors, including Aldingbourne, fortified Amberley and Drungewick on the northern edge of the diocese.
The French campaign also reached the greatest secular household in western Sussex. Thomas Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel and nephew of Archbishop Thomas Arundel, was Henry V’s Lord Treasurer and one of the commanders who assembled retinues for the expedition. Illness contracted during the siege of Harfleur forced him to return to England before Agincourt. He died at Arundel on 13 October 1415 and was buried in the collegiate church of Holy Trinity beside the castle. His funeral brought the cost of the campaign into a great Sussex house and into the church that served as the Fitzalan mausoleum.
Henry V pursued reconciliation with another great family in 1416 by restoring Henry Percy, the son of Hotspur, to the earldom of Northumberland and to the Percy estates. Petworth had long formed the family’s principal Sussex manor. Its return to Percy administration changed the lord to whom estate officers accounted and tenants rendered rents and services, while the restored earl supplied the Crown with the northern authority that Henry considered necessary for stable government.
Arundel, Petworth, Amberley and Drungewick were more than residences. Their halls, chapels, parks, barns, mills and estate courts concentrated produce, labour, hospitality and written records. Stewards and bailiffs collected rents, supervised repairs and organised demesne farming; chaplains maintained household worship; tenants encountered lordship through court days, payments, transport duties and patronage. Smaller manors and moated farmsteads across the Weald belonged to the same descending structure of landholding and obligation.
The Chichester Vacancy and Bishop Stephen Patrington, 1415-1418
The bishopric, or see, of Chichester remained vacant for more than two years after Bishop Robert Rede’s death. The years that followed brought four bishops in rapid succession – Stephen Patrington, Henry Ware, John Kemp and Thomas Polton – so the cathedral chapter and diocesan officers carried much of the continuing administration. A vacancy altered the highest level of diocesan government while leaving a developed system in place. The cathedral chapter continued solemn worship, archdeacons and officials handled legal business, patrons presented clergy to benefices and parish priests maintained the sacraments, burials and religious calendar within their communities.
The vacancy coincided with the Council of Constance, which met from 1414 to 1418 and ended the division of the western Church between rival papal claimants. English bishops, theologians and royal representatives took part in the proceedings. The election of Martin V in 1417 restored a single recognised pope and shaped the provisions by which several English bishops received their sees during the remaining years of Henry V’s reign.
Stephen Patrington, a Carmelite theologian and experienced churchman, became Bishop of Chichester late in 1417. His career had included teaching, preaching and service against Wycliffite doctrine. He reached the diocese as a bishop formed by university theology and the religious controversies of the previous generation.
Bishop Patrington died on 22 December 1417, soon after his appointment. His brief tenure allowed little opportunity for a sustained programme within Sussex. The cathedral and diocesan officers carried continuity across another vacancy while the Crown and papacy prepared the next appointment.
No day-to-day household diary or episcopal register comparable with Rede’s survives for Bishop Patrington’s short tenure, so his movements within Sussex and any personal use of Drungewick cannot be reconstructed. The manor nevertheless remained part of the temporal estate of the see, alongside Amberley, Aldingbourne and the Bishop’s Palace at Chichester, and its land and buildings continued under stewards, bailiffs, servants and chaplains. In the northern parishes, clergy at Wisborough Green, Kirdford, Billingshurst, Horsham and neighbouring churches sustained worship and pastoral care while the succession at the top of the diocese remained unsettled.
The Conquest of Normandy, 1417-1419
Agincourt increased Henry’s authority without completing his French policy. Naval operations in 1416 protected communication across the Channel, and in 1417 the king returned with a larger army prepared for territorial conquest. The campaign began in Normandy, where towns, castles and river crossings were taken in a deliberate sequence designed to establish permanent government.
Caen fell in September 1417, followed by a network of strongholds that opened roads through the duchy. English captains received commands and garrisons, while royal officials organised justice, taxation, property and supply. Henry required conquered communities to swear obedience and offered protection to those who accepted his rule. Lands forfeited by opponents rewarded English supporters and financed military occupation.
Rouen became the decisive objective. The siege began in 1418 and enclosed a large population whose stores steadily failed. Negotiations produced surrender in January 1419. Possession of the Norman capital gave Henry control of the lower Seine and a government centre from which the duchy could be administered. Churchmen served as diplomats, clerks and councillors as well as chaplains to the army.
Repeated campaigning depended upon Parliament and credit at home. Lay taxation, clerical subsidies, customs and loans supplied money, while Exchequer records converted grants into local assessments. Sussex commissioners and collectors connected the Western Weald to this financial system. Payments were gathered from property and trade, then carried through county administration towards the king’s war.
The local economy supplied taxable value through land, livestock, grain and woodland. Roads towards Horsham, Guildford, Arundel and the Arun valley linked farms with wider markets. Horses and carts moved goods in stages, and river and coastal shipping carried heavier loads. A household far from the Channel could therefore contribute to war through a tax payment, a lord’s retinue, hired transport or produce sold into the supply network.
Bishop Henry Ware: Chichester and France, 1418-1420
Henry Ware became Bishop of Chichester in 1418. He was trained in canon and civil law and had served within the Court of Arches and the administration of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was also a canon of Chichester, giving him direct knowledge of the cathedral before his elevation to the bishopric. His career matched Henry V’s preference for churchmen who could move between legal, diplomatic and royal responsibilities.
Bishop Ware served as Keeper of the Privy Seal and took part in negotiations connected with France and Burgundy. Pope Martin V appointed him to Chichester, and he was consecrated at Pont-de-l’Arche in Normandy in July 1418. The location placed an English diocesan appointment within the king’s expanding French dominion and among the international churchmen who accompanied court and army.
Royal and papal authority met within the formal process of appointment. Bishop Ware made his profession of obedience to Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, received the spiritual jurisdiction of the see and obtained the temporalities – the lands and revenues of the bishopric – from the Crown. As with other bishops appointed by papal provision, he acknowledged that clauses prejudicial to English law and royal rights carried no force within the kingdom.
Bishop Ware’s episcopate lasted until 1420. His surviving testament reveals concern for books, worship and the fabric of the episcopal household. An old Bible was returned to Margam Abbey, gifts supported religious observance and money was assigned towards work at the Bishop’s Palace. He chose burial within Chichester Cathedral, placing his memory in the church whose legal and sacramental order he had governed.
Bishop Ware’s royal and diplomatic duties carried him beyond Sussex. His surviving records preserve individual journeys and acts without supplying a continuous diocesan itinerary. Daily government therefore depended heavily upon the cathedral chapter, archdeacons, rural deans, parish incumbents and estate officers. Chichester, Amberley and Drungewick remained parts of the bishop’s institutional and landed presence while Ware attended the king, negotiated in France or travelled on Church business.
Woodland, Glass and Rural Work
Daily work in the Western Weald remained governed by season, soil and household obligation. Heavy clay required ploughing and carting to be timed around the weather. Cattle supplied traction, milk, meat, hides and manure; pigs fed within woodland; sheep provided wool; poultry and gardens supported household food. Grain became bread, ale and animal feed through labour shared among family members, servants and neighbours.
Woodland was managed as a renewable working resource. Large oaks supplied structural timber, while coppiced underwood provided poles, hurdles, fencing and fuel. Carpenters, wheelwrights and smiths depended upon timber and charcoal. Repairing a hall house, barn, cart, bridge, castle roof, manorial chapel or parish church drew upon the same landscape and upon craftspeople who worked across several villages and estates.
Glassmaking was already established in the Weald by the later Middle Ages. Furnaces were placed close to abundant fuel and suitable raw materials, and production depended upon careful control of heat, ash, sand and clay vessels. Glass served church windows, lamps and vessels as well as the households able to purchase it. At cathedrals, colleges, castles and great manor houses, glazed openings also expressed status, while coloured and painted church glass made biblical figures, saints and heraldry visible within sacred interiors.
The demand created by Chichester Cathedral, Syon Abbey, Arundel’s college, parish churches and great households supported networks of specialist work. A glazing commission required glassmakers, painters, glaziers, metalworkers and carriers. Repairs called for smaller quantities over long periods, allowing techniques and materials to move through market towns and estate connections and reach many separate building sites.
The rural economy supported institutions at every level. Great houses required grain, livestock, fuel, timber, carts and labour; parish churches relied upon tithes, offerings and local maintenance; smaller chapels and household places of worship drew upon the same crafts and supplies. Farming families therefore met rents, church obligations and taxation while responding to the changing demands created by war.
Rouen, Troyes and a French Marriage, 1419-1420
The political balance in France changed after the murder of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, at Montereau in September 1419. His son Philip allied with Henry against the Dauphin’s party. Negotiations joined the English occupation of Normandy to the crisis within the French royal family, where Charles VI’s illness had weakened central government and intensified rivalry between Burgundian and Armagnac factions.
The Treaty of Troyes was agreed in May 1420. Charles VI recognised Henry as regent and heir to the French Crown, while Henry agreed to preserve the laws and institutions of the kingdom. The Dauphin continued resistance from the south. The settlement transformed the English king’s position from conqueror of Normandy into the intended successor of France.
Henry married Catherine of Valois, daughter of Charles VI and Queen Isabeau, at Troyes on 2 June. The marriage joined dynastic policy with the sacramental and ceremonial authority of the Church. Mass, oaths, seals and public entries presented the treaty as a lawful peace between royal houses, even as military operations continued against towns that supported the Dauphin.
News of the treaty reached England through official proclamation and public thanksgiving. Catherine’s place within the royal family created expectations of an heir who might unite both crowns. Clergy prayed for the king and queen, and the marriage entered the cycle of royal intercession observed in cathedrals, monasteries and parish churches.
The treaty’s working instruments – oaths, seals, inherited rights and continuing payment – had close equivalents in Sussex estate life. At Arundel, Petworth and the bishop’s manors, succession altered who received homage, rents and services while charters, court rolls and accounts preserved continuity. National diplomacy and local lordship both depended upon durable records that defined authority after the individuals who created them had gone.
Bishops John Kemp and Thomas Polton, 1421-1422
Bishop Henry Ware’s death in 1420 opened another short vacancy at Chichester. John Kemp, then Bishop of Rochester, was transferred to Chichester in February 1421. Born at Wye in Kent and trained as a doctor of laws, Kemp had served as Archdeacon of Durham, Dean of the Arches and Vicar-General. He belonged to the same group of legally skilled churchmen whose careers joined episcopal office to the king’s administration.
Bishop Kemp also held the Privy Seal and worked within the government of the English territories in France. His brief tenure at Chichester ended with his transfer to London during 1421. His later career led to York, Canterbury and the cardinalate, and the Chichester appointment already shows the diocese’s place within a national and international network of royal service.
Bishop Thomas Polton followed him at Chichester. Polton had spent much of his career in Rome, acted as the king’s proctor and served at the Council of Constance as a senior legal officer for the English nation. Pope Martin V transferred him from the bishopric of Hereford to Chichester in November 1421. Bishop Polton made his profession of obedience to Archbishop Chichele in June 1422.
Rapid episcopal succession placed much responsibility upon diocesan institutions that remained in Sussex. The cathedral chapter maintained the solemn offices, officials heard legal causes and archdeacons supervised clergy. Patrons, incumbents and churchwardens continued the local cycle of vacancy, institution, repair and worship while bishops travelled on royal, diplomatic or papal business.
No household diaries survive to show whether Bishops Kemp or Polton stayed at Drungewick, Amberley or Chichester, and their short tenures leave no detailed local itinerary. The temporal estate nevertheless passed intact with the see. Stewards collected rents, bailiffs managed demesnes, chaplains served household worship and diocesan officers dealt with benefices, discipline and parish business. A bishop’s personal absence changed the visible household more readily than the underlying machinery of the diocese.
The Royal Heir and the Final Campaign, 1421-1422
Henry and Catherine returned to England early in 1421. Catherine was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 23 February, and the royal household travelled through parts of the kingdom in a progress that displayed the new queen and the French marriage. Feasts, gifts, religious services and civic receptions translated the Treaty of Troyes into public ceremony for English audiences.
The war soon drew Henry back across the Channel. His brother Thomas, Duke of Clarence, was killed at Baugé in March 1421, and the loss threatened English and allied positions. Henry sailed again in June. Before leaving he made another will, continuing his concern for prayers, religious foundations and work at Westminster Abbey.
In December 1421 Catherine gave birth at Windsor to a son named Henry. The child supplied the succession promised by the marriage and linked the Lancastrian and Valois dynasties. Royal letters carried the news, churches gave thanks and the infant entered a political inheritance extending across England and the occupied regions of France.
Henry’s final campaign centred upon the siege of Meaux, which surrendered in May 1422 after a long investment. The king’s health deteriorated during the following months. He died at Vincennes on 31 August, aged about thirty-five, while Charles VI still lived and before the French succession arranged at Troyes could take effect.
Henry’s body was taken to Rouen, prepared for the long journey and carried through France and England with an elaborate funeral procession. His burial took place at Westminster Abbey on 7 November. The tomb and elevated chantry chapel later raised above it placed an altar, priests and continuing prayer beside the royal grave, turning the memory of Agincourt’s king into a permanent part of the Abbey’s worship.
A Child King, 1422
Henry V’s son became King of England at nine months old. When Charles VI died in October, the Treaty of Troyes also made the child king the recognised ruler of the English and Burgundian territories in France. Government passed to councils and to Henry V’s brothers: John, Duke of Bedford, held chief responsibility in France, while Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, exercised authority in England within arrangements shaped by Parliament and the royal council.
The accession altered the political world without interrupting the ordinary machinery of local life. Writs were issued in Henry VI’s name, sheriffs and judges continued in office, tax accounts remained due and bishops maintained worship for the new king. Bishop Thomas Polton held the see of Chichester as the diocese entered a royal minority that would last for many years.
In the Western Weald, fields were prepared, livestock tended and woods cut according to the season. Estate courts and officers at Arundel, Petworth and the episcopal manors continued to collect rents and organise land, while bells at Wisborough Green, Kirdford, Alfold and other parish churches marked Sundays and festivals. The chaplain at Loxwood served one small congregation within this larger network as the district entered the long minority of a child king.
Henry V left a French kingdom secured by garrisons, alliances and treaty, together with debts, military commitments and an infant successor. The next reign opened with those inheritances in the hands of councillors, soldiers, bishops and local officers whose decisions would determine how long the settlement survived.