Henry V

Is there a book’s worth of new insights into this short reign, after the endeavours of K.B. McFarlane (1972), Christopher Allmand (2nd edn. 1997) and the team assembled by Gwilym Dodd (2013)? Author Malcolm Vale and publisher present their case in this biography which uses public records, rather than narrative sources, to produce a fresh appraisal of a king who has traditionally, and even from his own time, been the subject of hero-worship. The first two chapters, on daily government business and on the use of language, indeed lean heavily on a recent project at The National Archives which digitised, indexed and offered preliminary dating of the series SC 8: Ancient Petitions; though ironically, the tide of petitions was ebbing by 1413. That enterprise was due to the efforts and energy of Mark Ormrod of York, so some mention of Professor Ormrod’s role in that initiative would have been gracious. Gwilym Dodd is one beneficiary of this project and those two chapters make extensive use of his published work on many aspects of petitioning, not least its changing use of languages, along with the author’s own discoveries in The National Archives. In the following two chapters, on the king’s relations with the church, Vale’s touch is less sure, and some important recent published work is passed over. Subheadings would also have been helpful to readers here. Two chapters on Henry and culture are more rewarding, for Vale has evidently enjoyed himself getting to grips with the importance of the Old Hall Manuscript (which contains two of King Henry’s musical compositions), a minefield for the non-musicologist, and he describes in detail, and with obvious relish, the king’s material possessions

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