The Probert Encyclopaedia of People

HENRY V

Henry V was King of England from 1413 to 1422. He was born in 1386 at Monmouth and died in 1422 of dysentery. Soon after his accession, Henry V restored their estates to the Percies, and liberated the Earl of March, but in other respects based his internal administration upon that of his father. He laid claim to the French crown.

Henry V landed near Harfleur in August, 1415, and though its capture cost him more than half his army he decided to return to England by way of Calais. A large French army endeavoured to intercept him at the plain of Agincourt, but was completely routed in October, 1415. A year later the French were defeated at sea by the Duke of Bedford. In 1417 the liberal grants of the Commons enabled Henry once more to invade Normandy with 25,000 men.

The assassination of the Duke of Burgundy, which induced his son and successor to join Henry, greatly added to his power, and the alliance was soon followed by the famous Treaty of Troyes signed on May the 21st, 1420, by which Henry engaged to marry the Princess Catharine, and to leave Charles VI in possession of the crown, on condition that it should go to Henry and his heirs at his decease.

Henry V returned in triumph to England, but on the defeat of his brother, the Duke of Clarence, in Normandy by the Earl of Buchan, he again set out for France, drove back the army of the dauphin, and entered Paris. A son was at this time born to him, and all his great projects seemed about to be realized, when he died of dysentry at Vincennes in August, 1422, at the age of thirty-four, and in the tenth year of his reign. He was succeeded by his son Henry VI.
Research Henry V