In his youth, Henry was merely the son of Henry Bolingbroke, a prominent noble at court. When Henry seized the throne and deposed Richard II, the young Henry became heir apparent and was granted the title ‘Prince of Wales’. During his father’s declining years, Henry took over aspects of the administration himself, and led a military campaign to put down the rebellion of Owain Glendower. From 1408 Henry had to take over the reins of power from his father, despite some resistance from elements of the royal court. He was crowned Henry V on 20th March 1413, the day after his father’s death.

Henry developed a policy of pardoning previous plotters and political outcasts in order to free himself from the worry of dealing with disaffected nobles. He suppressed the Lollards, a religious reform movement, in England but otherwise tried to outmanoeuvre his enemies through compromise. He re-introduced English as the language of court and government, overturning more than three centuries of Anglo-Norman French dominance.

Henry campaigned vigorously to bring the long-standing French war to a conclusion, regarding it as an obstruction to his diplomatic aims on the continent. His convincing victory at Agincourt in 1415 promised a swift end to the conflict, which he pursued with campaigns in Normandy and besieging Paris in 1417, forcing the French to acknowledge the right of the English king to the throne of France. Four more years of conflict in northern France occupied Henry until he contracted dysentery in 1421 and died soon after while besieging Meaux, near Paris.

King Henry’s only son was also named Henry, from his marriage to the French princess Catherine of Valois.

The infant Henry succeeded his father as King of England at the age of nine months; within weeks he also acquired the French throne on the death of Charles VI under the terms of the agreement between Phillippe of France and Henry’s father. Two of Henry’s uncles, John of Bedford and Humphrey of Gloucester, acted as regents and government was conducted through a royal council. When Henry came of age in 1437, he began to pursue a policy of peace with France with his marriage to Margaret of Anjou, the niece of the Valois King Charles VII of France. The marriage terms involved ceding some English-held territory (Maine and Anjou) to the French king, a concession which angered the English nobility. By 1450, Normandy had been lost and there were signs of rebellion in England; three years later, Bordeaux fell to the French leaving Calais as England’s only continental port.

Disaffection with Henry’s rule grew and the king lost the will to deal with it, allowing some nobles to become dangerously powerful. During this period, the Duke of York arrogated the place of regent and declared himself ‘Protector of the Realm’ in 1454. Henry’s reaction to this development sparked the Wars of the Roses which ended temporarily with Henry’s imprisonment in 1461. The victorious Edward of York ruled as Edward VI. His reign did not last long due to disagreement with some of his main supporters including Richard of Warwick, who eventually managed to replace Henry on the throne in 1470 although he only lived a few more months and was imprisoned in the Tower of London by the ascendant Edward VI. With his death, the House of Lancaster ended after only three generations.

Hammered Coin Book and Other References:

S = Coins of England and the United Kingdom
N = English Hammered Coinage by J J North
SI = Sterling Imitations of Edwardian Type by M J Mayhew
WW = Wildwinds.com (reference & attribution site)